Voices in the Cave of Being

Whanne mine eyhnen misten

Whanne mine eyhnen misten
And mine eren sissen,
And my nose koldet
And my tunge foldet
And my rude slaket
And mine lippes blaken
And mine mouth grennet,
And my spotel rennet
And mine her riset
And mine herte griset
And my honden bivien,
And mine fet stivien—
All too late, all too late,
Whanne the bere is at the gate.

Anonymous, 13th century

Of all wemen that ever were borne

Of all wemen that ever were borne,
That bere childer, abide and see
How my sone lyeth me beforne,
Upon my skirte, taken from the Tree.
Your childer ye daunce upon youre knee,
With laghing, kissing and mery chere:
Beholde my childe, beholde wele me,
For now lyeth dedd my dere sone, dere.

O! woman, woman, wele is thee:
Thy childe capps thou castest upon.
Thou pikest his here, beholdest his ble,
Thou wottest not wele when thou haste don.
But ever, alas, I make my mon,
To see my sonis hedd as it is here:
I prike out thornes by oon and oon,
For now lyeth dedd my dere sone, dere.

O! woman, a chaplet chosen thou has:
Thy childe to were it dose thee liking.
Thou pinnest it on—grete joye thou mas.
And I sitt with my sone sore weping.
His chaplet is thornes sore pricking.
His mouth I kisse with a careful chere.
I sit weping and thou singing,
For now lyeth dedd my dere sone, dere.

O! wemen, loketh to me ageine,
That playe and kisse youre childer pappis.
To see my sone I have grete peine,
In his breste so grete a gappe is,
And on his body so many swappis,
With blody lippis I kisse him here.
Alas! Full harde me thinkis my happis,
For now lyeth dedd my dere sone, dere.

O! woman, thou takest thy childe by the hand,
And seyste, ‘Dere sone, gif me a stroke.’
My sonis handes are so bledand
To loke on them me liste not to layke.
His handes he sufferd for thy sake
Thus to be bored with nailes sere.
When thou makes mirth gret sorrows I make,
For now lyeth dedd my dere sone, dere.

Beholde! Wemen, when that ye play,
And have your childer on kne daunsand,
Ye fele ther fete, so fete are they,
And to youre sight full well likand.
But the most fingers of mine hand
Thorow my sonis fete I may put here,
And pulle it out sore bledand,
For now lyeth dedd my dere son, dere.

Therfore, wemen, by town and strete,
Your childer handes when ye beholde,
Ther breste, ther body, and ther fete,
God were on my sone to thinke, and ye wolde,
How care hath made my herte full colde,
To see my sone with naile and spere,
With scourge and thornes manifolde,
Wounded and dedd my dere sone, dere.

Anonymous, ca.1450

Wele, well; pikest, tidy ; ble, face; mas, makest;
chere, face; swappis, blows; happis, lot; sere, diverse;
so fete, so comely; most, biggest; God, Good; and ye, if you

Ballade: Les Contradits de Franc Gontier

Gontier ne crains, il n’a nuls hommes
Et mieux que moi n’est herité.
Mais en ce débat-ci nous sommes,
Car il loue sa pauvreté,
Etre pauvre hiver et été,
Et à felicité repute
Ce que tiens à malheureté;
Lequel a tort? Or en discute:

Sur mol duvet assis, un gras chanoine,
Lez un brasier en chambre bien natée
A son côté gisand Dame Sidoine,
Blanche, tendre, polie et attintée,
Boire ypocras à jour et à nuitée
Rire, jouer, mignonner et baiser,
Et nu à nu pour mieux des corps s’aiser,
Les vis tous deux par un trou de mortaise;
Lors je connus que pour deuil apaiser
Il n’est trésor que de vivre à son aise.

Si Franc Gontier et sa compagne Hélène
Eussent cette douce vie hantée,
D’oignons, civots, qui causent forte haleine
N’acontassent une bise tostée.
Tout leur maton, ne toute leur potée,
Ne prise un ail, je le dis sans noiser.
S’ils se vantent coucher sous le rosier,
Lequel vaut mieux, lit cotoyé de chaise?
Qu’en dites-vous? Faut-il à ce muser?
Il n’est trésor que de vivre à son aise.

De gros pain bis vivent, d’orge, d’avoine,
Et boivent eau tout au long de l’année
Tous les oiseaux d’ici en Babiloine
A tel écot une seule journée
Ne me tendroient, non une matinée.
Or s’ébatte, de par Dieu, Franc Gontier,
Hélène o lui, sous le bel eglantier,
Si bien leur est, cause n’ai qu’il me pèse
Mais quoi que soit du laboureux métier,
Il n’est trésor que de vivre à son aise.

Prince, juge pour tôt nous accorder.
Quant est de moi, mais qu’à nul ne deplaise,
Petit enfant, j’ay oï recorder
Il n’est trésor que de vivre à son aise.

François Villon (c. 1431– c.1463)

The Reply to Franc Gontier

A plump canon lounging on an eiderdown
Near the fire in a thickly carpeted room
Lady Sidonia stretching out beside him
White, delectable, glistening, primped
Sipping mulled wine by day and by night
Laughing, toying, dallying, kissing
Both completely naked for their bodies’ delight
So I spied them through a mortise chink
Then I knew that for casting off grief
There’s no treasure like high living.

If only Franc Gontier and his friend Helen
Had got a little used to the easy life
They wouldn’t now be garnishing their black toast
With onions and leeks that foul the breath
All their yoghurt and vegetable soups
Aren’t worth one garlic, meaning no offense
Though they go on about sleeping under the rose tree
Can they beat a bed with a chair beside it?
What do you say? Don’t bother to think twice
There’s no treasure like living high

They live on coarse bread of barley and oats
And drink only water the year around
But all the birds from here to Babylon
Couldn’t make me stick it for one day
On such a diet, no not for a morning
So let him get on with it, by God, Franc Gontier
And his Helen under the pretty eglantine
If that’s what they like it’s fine with me
But whatever may be said for life at the plough
There’s no treasure like living high

Prince decide so we can quickly agree
But as for me, let no one take offense
When I was a child I used to hear them say
There’s no treasure like living high

François Villon (c. 1431– c.1463)
Tr. Galway Kinnell

Lament of the Maister of Erskine

Departe, departe, departe,
Allace! I must departe
Frome hir that hes my hart,
With hairt ful soir,
Against my will in deid,
And can find no remeid,
I wait, the panis of deid
Can do no more.

Now must I go, allace!
Frome sicht of her sueit face,
The grund of all my grace
And soverane:
Quhat chanss that may fall me
Sall I nevir mirry be,
Unto the tyme I se
My sueit agane.

I go, and wait not quhair,
I wandir heir and thair,
I weip and sichis rycht sair,
With panis smart;
Now most I pass away,
In wild and wilsum way:
Allace! this wofull day
We suld depart.

My spreit dois quaik for dreid,
My thirlit hairt dois bleid,
My panis dois exceed;
Quhat suld I say?
I wofull wycht alone,
Makand ane petous mone,
Allace! my hairt is gone,
For evir and ay.

Throw langour of my sueit,
So thirlit is my spreit,
My dayis are most compleit,
Throe hir absence:
Chryst, sen scho know my smert,
Ingrawit is my hairt,
Becaus I must departe,
From hir presens.

Adew, my awin sueit thing,
My joy and comforting,
My mirth and sollessing,
Of erdly gloir;
Fair weill, my lady bricht,
And my remembrance rycht;
Fair weill, and haif gud nycht:
I say no moir.

Alexander Scott (1520–158?)

Ces longues nuits d’hiver, où la Lune ocieuse

Ces longues nuits d’hiver, où la Lune ocieuse
Tourne si lentement son char tout à l’entour,
Ou le Coq si tardif nous annonce le jour,
Où la nuit semble un an à l’ame soucieuse:

Je fusse mort d’ennui sans ta forme douteuse,
Qui vient par une feinte alleger mon amour,
Et faisant toute nue entre mes bras sejour,
Me pipe doucement d’une joie meteuse.

Vraie tu es farouche, et fiere en cruauté:
De toi fausse on jouit en toute privauté
Pres ton mort je m’endors, pres de lui je repose:

Rien ne m’est refusé. Le bon sommeil ainsi
Abuse par le faux mon amoureux souci.
S’abuser en amour n’est pas mauvaise chose.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585)

In these long winter nights when the lazy Moon

In these long winter nights when the lazy Moon
Steers her chariot so slowly on its way,
When the cockerel so tardily calls the day,
When night to the troubled soul seems years through:

I would have died of misery if not for you,
In shadowy form, coming to ease my fate,
Utterly naked in my arms, to lie and wait,
Sweetly deceiving me with a specious view.

The real you is fierce, of pitiless cruelty:
The false you one enjoys, in true intimacy,
I sleep beside your ghost, rest by an illusion:

Nothing’s denied me. So kind sleep deceives
My loving sorrows with your false reality.
In love there is no harm in self-delusion.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585)
Tr. A.S. Klein

Chanson

Douce Maistress touche,
Pour soulager mon mal,
Ma bouche de ta bouche
Plus rouge que Coral;
Que mon col soit pressé
De tes bras enlassé.

Puis face dessus face
Regarde moy les yeux,
Afin que ton trait passe
En mon coeur soucieux,
Coeur qui ne vit sinon
D’Amour et de ton nom.

Je l’ay veu fier et brave,
Avant que ta beauté
Pour estre ton esclave
Du sein me l’eust osté
Mais son mal luy plaist bien,
Pourveu qu’il meure tien.

Belle, par qui je donne
À mes yeux tant d’esmoy,
Baise moy ma mignonne,
Cent fois rebaise moy;
Et quoy? faut-il en vain
Languit dessus ton sein?

Maistresse je n’ay garde
De vouloir t’esveiller.
Heureux quand je regarde
Tex beaux yeux sommeiller:
Heureux quand je les voy
Endormis dessus moy.

Veux-tu que je les baise
Afin de les ouvrir?
Hà, tu fais la mauvaise
Pour me faire mourir:
Je meurs entre tes bras,
Et s’il ne t’en chaut pas.

Hà! ma chère ennemie,
Si tu veux m’appaiser,
Redonne moy la vie
Par l’esprit d’un baiser.
Hà! j’en sens la douceur
Couler jusques au coeur.

J’aime la douce rage
D’amour continuel,
Quad d’un mesme courage
Le soing est mutuel.
Heureux sera le jour
Que je mourray d’amour.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585)

Song

To relieve my pain,
Sweet mistress, touch,
My mouth with yours,
Redder than coral,
With your arms tight
Around my neck.

Then, face close to face,
Gaze into my eyes,
And let your dart pierce
My anxious heart,
A heart living only
For Love and you.

I’ve known it brave and proud
Before your beauty
Stole it from my breast
To make it your slave,
But it’s happy with the pain,
Provided it dies yours.

So lovely that my eyes
Are seething, seething,
Kiss me, my darling,
Kiss me a hundred times;
And then? Must I lie in vain
Upon your bosom … ?

Oh mistress mine, I can relax now.
No need to wake you.
I’m happy just watching
Your lovely eyes drowsing
Happy when I see them
Asleep underneath me.

But how about a kiss or two,
To reopen them…?
Oh, you’re being wicked,
You’re simply killing me
I’m dying in your arms
And it doesn’t bother you.

My dear sweet enemy,
If you want to be really nice.
Just bring me back to life
With a well-placed kiss …
Ah! I can feel the sweetness
Flowing up to my heart.

I love the sweet storm
Of continual passion
When we’ve the same desires
And can come together.
It will be bliss
When I really die of love.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585)
Tr. JF

D’une Courtizanne à Venus

Si je puis ma jeunesse folle,
Hantant les bordeaux, garantir
De ne pouvoir jamais sentir
Ne poulains, chancre, ne verole,

O Venus! de Bacus compaigne,
À toi je promets, en mes voeus,
Mon éponge, et mes faus cheveus,
Mon fard, mon miroer, et mon paigne.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585)

From a Courtesan to Venus

If my wanton youth can be sure,
As it haunts the brothels,
That it will never have to know
Buboes, cankers, or pockmarks,

O Venus! companion of Bacchus,
I'll see that you inherit,
My little sponge and my hairpieces,
My rouge, my mirror, and my comb.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585)
Tr. JF

“O long winter nights”

O long winter nights, bane of my existence,
Give me patience and allow me to sleep.
The very mention of you makes my whole body
Shudder and sweat, you treat me so cruelly.

Sleep, however briefly, never hovers over
My always-open eyes, and I can’t press
Eyelid upon eyelid, but only groan,
Suffering, like Ixion, unending pain.

Old dark of earth, the dark of hell,
You hold open my eyes with chains of iron,
And ravage my body with a thousand stabbing pains.

To stop them for ever, let death come to me.
O death, our common haven, our human comforter,
Put an end to my suffering, I beseech you with clasped hands.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585)
Tr. JF

Down in the depth of mine iniquity

Down in the depth of mine iniquity,
That ugly center of infernal spirits,
Where each sin feels her own deformity,
In these peculiar torments she inherits,
Deprived of human graces, and divine,
Even there appears this saving God of mine.

And in this fatal mirror of transgression,
Shows man as fruit of his degeneration,
The error’s ugly infinite impression,
Which bears the faithless down to desperation;
Deprived of human graces and divine,
Even there appears this saving God of mine.

In power and truth, Almighty and eternal,
Which on the sin reflects strange desolation,
With glory scourging all the Sprites infernal,
And uncreated hell with unprivation;
Deprived of human graces, not divine,
Even there appears this saving God of mine.

For on this spiritual Cross condemned lying,
To pains infernal by eternal doom,
I see my Savious for the same sins dying,
And from that hell I feared, to free me come;
Deprived of human graces, not divine,
Thus hath his death raised up this soul of mine.

Fulke Greville (1554–1628)

Fine Knacks for Ladies

Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave, and new,
Good pennyworths, but money cannot move;
I keep a fair but for the fair to view;
A beggar may be liberal in love;
Though all my wares be trash the heart is true,
The heart is true,
The heart is true.

Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again;
My trifles come as treasures from my mind;
It is a precious jewel to be plain;
Sometimes in shell the orient’s pearl we find;
Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain,
Of me a grain,
Of me a grain.

Within this pack pins, points, laces, and gloves,
And diverse toys fitting a country fair,
But in my heart where duty serves and loves,
Turtles and twins, court’s brood, a heavenly pair;
Happy the heart that thinks of no removes
Of no removes
Of no removes.

John Dowland (1563–1625)

If I Could Shut the Gate

If I could shut the gate against my thoughts,
And keep out sorrow from this room within,
Or memory could cancel all the notes
Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin.
How free, how clear, how clean my soul should lie,
Discharged of such a loathsome company.

Or were there other rooms without my heart,
That did not to my conscience join so near,
Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart,
That I might not their clamorous crying hear,
What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess,
Freed from their horrors that my soul oppress.

But, O my Saviour, who my refuge art,
Let thy dear mercies stand ’twixt them and me,
And be the wall to separate my heart
So that I may at length repose me free,
That peace and joy and rest may be within,
And I remain divided from my sin.

John Danyel (1564–1626)

The Spring of Joy is Dry

The spring of joy is dry
That ran into my heart;
And all my comforts fly.
My love and I must part.
Farewell, my love, I go,
If fate will have it so.
Yet to content us both
Return again, as doth
The shadow to the hour,
The bee unto the flower,
The fish unto the hook,
The cattle to the brook,
That we may sport our fill
And love continue still.

Martin Peerson (ca. 1571–1650)

Condensed Confession/ Abrégé de Confession

Since the seven sins of the eyes
Bar the way that leads to Heaven,
Reverend Father, I promise you
To abominate them in every way,
Just so as I don’t encounter any
Impatience and lasciviousness.

Those two come naturally to me:
Neither castigation, nor laws,
Nor noble words can keep me back
And when a simple-souled repentance
Would like to turn me away from them
My nature makes it impossible.

I’ve done my best to avoid them both
By saying over my Paternosters
And reading in the Holy Book
But in the middle of my struggles
Comforters whisper in my ear
That actually they’re perfectly normal.

It isn’t God who’s listed them
Among the ranks of our enemies;
Some second Pandora has been at work
Who, wanting to torment mankind,
Has spread that calumny about Him
With her own mischief-making hands.

For I don’t know any Augustinian,
Or Carmelite, or Celestine,
However firm and full of zeal,
However perfect in devotion,
Who, when out in the real world,
Could honour so severe a law.

So please arrange it, as I’ve said,
That I can be given proper credit
So as to be pure of conscience
Like the blessed Saints of old,
And eliminate from that rigid list
Impatience and lasciviousness.

Mathurin Regnier (1573–1613)
Tr. JF

A Psalm or Hymn to the Graces

Glory be to the Graces!
That do in public places
Drive thence whate’er encumbers
The listening to my numbers.

Honour be to the Graces!
Who do with sweet embraces,
Show they are well contented
With what I have invented.

Worship be to the Graces!
Who do from sour faces,
And lungs that would infect me,
For evermore protect me.

Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

The White Island; or Place of the Blest

In this world (the Isle of Dreames)
While we sit by sorrowes streames,
Teares and terrors are our theames
Reciting:

But when once from hence we flie,
More and more approaching nigh
Unto young Eternitie
Uniting:

In that whiter Island, where
Things are evermore sincere;
Candor here, and lustre there
Delighting:

There no monstrous fancies shall
Out of hell an horrour call,
To create (or cause at all)
Affrighting.

There in calm and cooling sleep
We our eyes shall never steep;
But eternal watch shall keep,
Attending

Pleasures, such as shall pursue
Me immortaliz’d, and you;
And fresh joyes, as never to
Have ending.

Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why
Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny
The sunshine of thy soul-enliv’ning eye?

Without thy light, what light remains in me?
Thou art my life, my way; my light; in thee;
I live, I move, and by thy beams I see.

Thou art my life; if thou but turn away
My life’s a thousand deaths; thou art my way;
Without thee, Lord, I travel not but stray.

My light thou art; without thy glorious sight
My eyes are darken’d with eternal night;
My God, thou art my way, my life, my light.

Thou art my way; I wander if thou fly;
Thou art my light; if hid, how blind am I;
Thou art my light, if thou withdraw I die.

Mine eyes are blind and dark, I cannot see;
To whom or whither should my darkness flee,
But to that light, and who’s that light but thee?

My path is lost, my wand’ring steps do stray;
I cannot safely go, nor safely stay;
Whom should I seek but thee, my path, my way?

Oh, I am dead; to whom shall I, poor I,
Repair? to whom shall my sad ashes fly,
But life? And where is life but in thine eye?

And yet thou turn’st thy face away and fly’st me;
And yet I sue for grace and thou deny’st me;
Speak, art thou angry, Lord, or only try’st me?

Unscreen those heavenly lamps, or tell me why
Thou shad’st thy face; perhaps thou think’st no eye
Can view their flames, and not drop down and die.

If that be all, shine forth and draw thee nigher,
Let me be bold and die, for my desire,
Is phoenix-like to perish in that fire.

Death-conquer’d Laz’rus was redeem’d by thee;
If I am dead, Lord, set death’s prisoner free;
Am I more spent, or stink I worse than he?

If my puff’d life be out, give leave to tine
My shameless snuff at that bright lamp of thine;
Oh! what’s thy light the less for lighting mine?

If I have lost my path, great Shepherd, say
Shall I still wander in a doubtful way?
Lord, shall a lamb of Israel’s sheep-fold stray?

Thou art the pilgrim’s path, the blind man’s eye,
The dead man’s life; on thee my hopes rely;
If thou remove, I err, I grope, I die.

Dissolve thy sun beams; close thy wings, and stay;
See, see how I am blind, and dead, and stray,
Oh thou, that art my life, my light, my way.

Then work thy will; if passion bid me flee,
My reason shall obey, my wings shall be
Stretched out no further than from me to thee

Francis Quarles (1592–1644)

An Old Souldier of the Queen

Of an old Souldier of the Queens,
With an old motley coat, and a Maumsie nose,
And an old Jerkin that’s out at the elbows,
And an old pair of boots, drawn on without hose
Stuft with rags instead of toes;
And an old Souldier of the Queens,
And the Queen’s old Souldier.

With an old rusty sword that’s hackt with blows,
And an old dagger to scare away the crows,
And an old horse that reels as he goes,
And an old saddle that no man knows,
And an old Souldier of the Queens,
And the Queens old Souldier.

With his old wound in Eighty-Eight,
Which he recover’d at Tilbury fight;
With an old Pasport that never was read,
That in his old travels stood him in great stead;
And an old Souldier of the Queens,
And the Queens old Souldier.

With his old Gun, and his Bandeliers,
And an old head-piece to keep warm his ears,
With an old shirt is grown to wrack,
With a hugr Louse, with a great list on his back,
Is able to carry a Pedlar and his Pack;
And an old Souldier of the Queens,
And the Queens old Souldier.

With an old Quean to lie by his side,
That in old time had been pockifi’d;
He’s now rid to Bohemia to fight with his foes,
And he swears by his Valour he’ll have better cloaths
Or else he’ll lose legs, arms, fingers, and toes,
And he’ll come again, when no man knows,
And an old Souldier of the Queens,
And the Queens old Souldier.

Maumsie> Malmsey

Anon.

A Prognostication on Will Laud, late Archbishop of Canterbury

My little lord, methinks ’tis strange,
That you should suffer such a change,
In such a little space.
You that so proudly t’other day,
Did rule the king, and country sway,
Must budge to ’nother place.

Remember now from whence you came,
And that your grandsires of your name,
Were dressers of old cloth.
Go, bid the dead men bring their shears,
And dress your coat to save your ears,
Or pawn your head for both.

The wind shakes cedars that are tall,
An haughty mind must have a fall,
You are but low I see;
And good it had been for you still,
If both your body, mind, and will,
In equal shape should be.

The king by heark’ning to your charms,
Hugg’d our destruction in his arms,
And gates to foes did ope;
Your staff would strike his cepter down,
Your mitre would o’ertop the crown,
If you should be a Pope.

But you that did so firmly stand,
To bring in Popery in this land,
Have miss’d your hellish aim;
Your saints fall down, your angels fly,
Your crosses on yourself do lie,
Your craft will be your shame.

We scorn that Popes with crozier staves,
Mitres or keys, should make us slaves,
And to their feet to bend:
The Pope and his malicious crew,
We hope to handle all, like you,
And bring them to an end.

The silenc’d clergy, void of fear,
In your damnation will bear share,
And speak their mind at large:
Your cheese-cake cap and magpie gown,
That make such strife in every town,
Must now defray your charge.

Within this six year six ears have
Been cropped off worthy men and grave,
For speaking what was true;
But if your subtle head and ears
Can satisfy those six of theirs,
Expect but what’s your due.

Poor people that have felt your rod,
Yield laud to the Devil, praise to God,
For freeing them from thrall;
Your little grace, for want of grace,
Must lose your patriarchal place,
And have no grace at all.

Your white lawn sleeves that were the wings
Whereon you soared to lofty things,
Must be your fins to swim;
Th’Archbishop’s see by Thames must go,
With him into the Tower below,
There to be rack’d like him.

Your oath cuts deep, your lies hurt sore,
You canons made Scot’s cannon roar,
But now I hope you’ll find,
That there are cannons in the Tower,
Will quickly batter down your power,
And sink your haughty mind.

The commonalty have made a vow,
No oath, no canons to allow,
No Bishop’s Common Prayer;
No lazy prelates that shall spend
Such great revenues to no end,
But virtue to impair.

Dumb dogs that wallow in such store,
That would suffice above a score
Pastors of upright will;
Now they’ll make all the bishops teach,
And you must in the pulpit preach,
That stands on Tower Hill.

When the young lads to you did come,
You knew their meaning by the drum,
You had better yielded then;
Your heart and body then might have
One death, one burial, and one grave,
By boys—but two by men.

But you that by your judgments clear
Will make five quarters in a year
And hang them on the gates,
That head shall stand upon the bridge,
When yours shall under Traitors trudge,
And smile on your miss’d pates.

The little Wren that soar’d so high
Thought on his wings away to fly,
Like Finch, I know not whither;
But now the subtle whirly-Wind-
Debanke hath left the bird behind,
You two must flock together.

A bishop’s head, a deputy’s breast,
A Finch’s tongue, a Wren from’s nest,
Will set the Devil on foot;
He’s like to have a dainty dish,
At once both flesh and fowl and fish,
And Duck and Lamb to boot.

But this I say, that your lewd life
Did fill both Church and State with strife,
And trample on the Crown;
Like a bless’d martyr you will die
For Church’s good; she rises high,
When such as you fall down.

Anon

A Prayer

Eternal reason, glorious majesty,
Compared to whom what can be said to be?
Whose attributes are thee, who art alone
Cause of all various things, and yet but one;
Whose essence can no more be searched by man,
Than Heaven thy throne be graspéd with a span.
Yet is this great creation was designed
To several ends fitted for ev’ry kind;
Sure man (the world’s epitome) must be
Formed to the best, that is, to study thee.
And as our dignity, ‘tis duty too,
Which is formed up in this, to know and do.
These comely rows of creatures spell thy name,
Whereby we grope to find from whence they came,
By thy own chain of causes brought to think
There must be one, then find that highest link.
Thus all created excellence we see
Is a resemblance faint and dark of thee.
Such shadows are produced by the moon-beams
Of trees or houses in the running streams.
Yet by impressions born with us we find
How good, great, just thou art, how unconfined.
Here we are swallowed up and gladly dwell,
Safely adoring what we cannot tell.
All we know is, thou art supremely good,
And dost delight to be so understood;
A spicy mountain on the universe,
On which thy richest odours do disperse.
But as the sea to fill a vessel heaves
More greedily than any cask receives,
Besieging round to find some gap in it,
Which will a new infusion admit:
So dost thou covet that thou may’st dispense
Upon the empty world thy influence;
Lov’st to disburse thy self in kindness: Thus
The king of kings waits to be gracious.
On this account, O God, enlarge my heart
To entertain what thou wouldst fain impart.
Nor let that soul, by several titles thine,
And most capacious formed for things divine,
(So nobly meant, that when it most doth miss,
‘Tis in mistaken pantings after bliss)
Degrade itself in sordid things delight,
Or by profaner mixtures lose its right.
Oh! that with first unbroken thoughts it may
Admire the light which does obscure the day.
And since ‘tis angels work it hath to do,
May its components be like angels too.
When shall these clogs of sense and fancy break,
That I may hear the God within me speak,
When with a silent and retired Art
Shall I with all this empty hurry part?
To the still voice above, my soul, advance;
My light and joy placed in his countenance.
By whose dispence my soul to such frame brought,
May tame each treach’rous, fix each scatt’ring thought;
With such distinctions all things here behold,
And so to separate each dross from gold,
That nothing my free soul may satisfy,
But t’imitate, enjoy, and study thee.

Katherine Philips (1631–1664)

To Mrs. Mary Awbrey

Soul of my soul, my joy, my crown, my friend,
A name which all the rest doth comprehend,
How happy are we now, whose souls are grown
By an incomparable mixture one:
Whose well-acquainted minds are now as near
As love, or vows, or friendship can endear?
I have no thought but what’s to thee revealed,
Nor thou desire that is from me concealed.
Thy heart locks up my secrets richly set,
And my breast is thy private cabinet.
Thou find’st no tear but what my moisture lent,
And if I sigh, it is thy breath is spent.
United thus, what horror can appear
Worthy our sorrow, anger, or our fear?
Let the dull world alone to talk and fight,
And with their vast ambitions Nature fright;
Let them despise so innocent a flame,
While envy, pride and faction play their game:
But we by love sublimed so high shall rise,
To pity kings, and conquerors despise,’
Since we that sacred union have engrssed
Which they and all the factious world have lost.

Katherine Philips (1631–1664)

Wiston Vault

And why this vault and tomb? alike we must
Put off distinction, and put on our dust.
Nor can the stateliest fabric help to save
From the corruption of a common grave;
Nor for the resurrection more prepare,
Than if the dust were scattered into air.
What then? Th’ambition’s just, say some, that we
May thus perpetuate our memory.
Ah false vain task of art! ah poor weak man!
Whose monument does more than’s merit can:
Why by his friends’ best care and love’s abused,
And in his very epitaph accused:
For did they not suspect his name would fall,
There would not need an epitaph at all.
But after death too I would be alive,
And shall, if my Lucasia do, survive.
I quit these pomps of death, and am content,
Having her heart to be my monument:
Though ne’er stone to me, ‘twill stone for me prove,
By the peculiar miracle of love.
There I’ll inscription have which no tomb gives,
Not, Here Orinda lies, but, Here she lives.

Katherine Philips (1631–1664)

Orinda to Lucasia

I

Observe the weary birds, e’er night be done,
How they would fain call up the tardy sun:
With feathers hung with dew
And trembling voices too,
They court their glorious planet to appear,
That they may find recruits of spirits there.
The drooping flowers hang their heads,
And languish down into their beds:
While brooks more bold and fierce than they,
Wanting those beams, from whence
All things drink influence,
Openly murmur, and demand the day.

II

Thou my Lucasia are for more to me,
Than he to all the under-world can be;
From thee I’ve heat and light,
Thy absence makes my night.
But ah! my friend, it now grows very long,
The sadness weighty, and the darkness strong:
My tears (its dew) dwell on my cheeks,
And still my heart thy dawning seeks,
And to thee mournfully it cries,
That if too long I wait,
E’en thou may’st come too late,
And not restore my life, but close my eyes.

Katherine Philips (1631–1664)

La Bella Bona-Roba

I cannot tell who loves the skeleton
Of a poor marmoset, naught but bone, bone;
Give me a nakedness with her clothes on.

Such whose white-satin upper coat of skin
Cut upon velvet rich incardadine,
Has yet a body (and of flesh) within.

Sure it is meant good husbandry in men,
Who do incorporate with airy lean,
T’repair their sides and get their rib again.

Hard hap unto that huntsman that decrees
Fat joys for all his sweat, whenas he sees
After his ‘say, naught but his keeper’s fees.

Then, Love, I beg, when next thou tak’st thy bow,
Thy angry shafts, and does heart-hunting go,
Pass rascal deer, strike me the largest doe.

Richard Lovelace (1618–1658)

The Blythsome Wedding

See glossary and Note

Fy let us a’ to the bridal,
For there will be lilting there;
For Jocky’s to be married to Maggie,
The lass wi’ the gowden hair;
And there will be lang-kail and pottage,
And bannocks of barley-meal,
And there will be good sawt-herring,
To relish a cog of good ale.
Fy let us a’ to the bridal, &c

And there will be Sawney the sutor,
And Will wi’ the meikle mou’,
And there will be Tom the blutter,
And Andrew the tinkler I trow,
And there will be bow-legg’d Robbie,
And thumbless Katy’s goodman,
And there will be blue-cheeked Dowbie,
And Lawrie the laird of the land.
Fy let us, &c

And there will be sow-libber Patie,
And plucky-fac’d Wat i’ the mill,
Capper-nos’d Francie, and Gibbie
That wins in the how of the hill,
And there will be Alaster Sibbie
Wha in with black Bessie did mool,
And sniveling Lilly and Tibby,
The lass that stands aft on the stool.
Fy let us, &c

And Madge that was buckled to Steenie,
And cost him grey breeks to his arse,
And after was hangit for stealing,
Great mercy it happen’d na warse;
And there will be gleed Geodie Janners,
And Kirsh wi’ the lilly-white leg,
Wha gade to the south for manners,
And bang’d up her wamb in Mons-Meg.
Fy let us, &c

And there will be Judan Maclawrie,
And blinkin daft Barbara and Macleg,
Wi’ flae-lugged sharney-fac’d Lawrie,
And shangy-mou’d haluket Meg.
And there will be happer-ars’d Nansy,
And fairy-fac’d Flowrie by name,
Muck Madie, and fat-hippit Grisy,
The lass wi’ the gowden wame.
Fy let us, &c

And there will be Girn-again Gibbie,
And his glaikit wife Jenny Bell,
And misle-shinn’d Mungo Macapie,
The lad that was skipper himsell.
There lads and lassies in pearlings,
Will feast in the heart of the ha,
On sybows, and rifarts, and carlings,
That are baith sodden and raw.
Fy let us, &c

There will be fadges and brachan,
With fowth of good gabbocks of skate,
Powsowdy, and drammock, and crowdy,
And cauler nowt-feet in a plate;
And there will be partans and buckies,
And whitens and speldings anew,
With sing’d sheep-heads, and a haggis,
And scadlips to sup till ye spew.
Fy let us, &c

And there will be lapper’d-milk kebbocks,
And sowens, and farls, and baps,
And swats, and well-scraped paunches,
And brandy in stoups and in caps;
And there will be meal-kail and castocks,
With skink to sup till ye rive,
And roasts to roast on a brander,
Of flowks that were taken alive.
Fy let us, &c

Scrapt haddocks, wilks, dulse and tangle,
And a mill of good snishing to prie;
When weary with eating and drinking,
We’ll rise up and dance till we die.
Then fy let us all to the bridal,
For there will be lilting there;
For Jocky’s to be married to Maggie,
The lass with the gowden hair.

Francis Sempill (1616?–1686)

Upon the Theme of Love

O Love, how thou art tired out with Rhyme!
Thou art a tree, whereon all poets climb,
And from thy tender branches every one
Doth take some fruit, which Fancy feeds upon:
But now thy tree is left so bare and poor,
That they can hardly gather one plum more.

Margaret Cavendish (ca. 1623–1673)

Meditation Twenty

Philippians II: 9: Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him.

View, all ye eyes above, this sight which flings
Seraphick Phancies in Chill Raptures high:
A Turffe of Clay, and yet bright Glories King:
From dust to Glory Angell-like to fly.
A Mortall Clod immortaliz’d behold,
Flyes through the skies swifter than Angells could.

Upon the Wings he of the Winde rode in
His Bright Sedan, through all the Silver Skies,
And made the Azure Cloud, his Charriot, bring
Him to the Mountain of Celestiall joyes.
The Prince o’ th’ Aire durst not an Arrow spend,
While through his Realm his Charriot did ascend.

He did not in a Fiery Charriot’s shine,
And Whirlewinde, like Elias upward goe.
But th’golden Ladders Jasper rounds did climbe
Unto the Heavens high from Earth below.
Each step had on a Golden Stepping Stone
Of Deity unto his very Throne.

Methinks I see Heavens sparklingl Courtiers fly,
In flakes of Glory down him to attend;
And heare Heart Cramping notes of Melody
Surround his Charriot as it did ascend:
Mixing their Musick, making e’vry strong
More to inravish, as they this tune sing.

God is Gone up with a triumphant shout:
The Lord with sounding Trumpets melodies:
Sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praises out,
Unto our King sing praise seraphick-wise!
Lift up your Heads, ye lasting Doore, they sing,
And let the King of Glory Enter in.

Art thou ascended up on high, my Lord,
And must I be without thee here below?
Art thou the sweetest joy the Heavens afford?
Oh! that I with thee was! What shall I do?
Should I pluck Feathers from an Angells Wing,
They could not waft me up to thee my King.

Lend mee thy Wings, my Lord, I’st fly apace,
My Soules Arms stud with thy strong Quills, true Faith;
My Quills then Feather with thy Saving Grace,
My Wings will take the Winde thy Word displai’th.
Then I shall fly up to thy glorious Throne
With my strong Wings whose Feathers are thine own.

Edward Taylor (1642–1679)

Meditation Sixty-Two

Second Series

Canticle 1: 12: While the king sitteth at his table,
my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof.

Oh! thou, my Lord, thou king of Saints, here mak’st
A royall Banquet, thine to entertain
With rich and royall fare, Celestial Cates,
And sittest at the Table rich of fame.
Am I bid to this Feast? Sure Angells stare,
Such Rugged looks, and Ragged robes I ware.

I’le surely com; Lord, fit mee for this feast:
Purge me with Palma Christi from my sin.
With Plastrum Gratiae Dei, or at least
Unguent Apostolorum healing bring.
Give me thy Sage and Savory: me dub
With Golden Rod, and with Saint Johns Wort good.

Root up my Henbain, Fawnbain, Divells bit,
My Dragons, Chokewort, Crosswort, Ragwort, vice:
And set my knot with Honeysuckles, stick
Rich Herb-a-Grace, and Grains of Paradise,
Angelica, yes, Sharons Rose the best,
And Herba Trinitatis in my breast.

Then let thy Sweetspike sweat its liquid Dew
Into my Crystall Viall, and there swim.
And, as thou at thy Table in Rich Shew
With royal Dainties, sweet discourse as King
Dost Welcome thine, My Spiknard with its smell
Shall vapour out perfumed Spirits Well./p>

Whether I at thy Table Guest do sit,
And feed my tast, or Wait, and fat mine Eye
And Eare with Sights and Sounds, Heart Raptures fit:
My Spicknard breaths its sweet perfumes with joy.
My heart thy Viall with this spicknard fill,
Perfumed praise to thee then breath it will.

Edward Taylor (1642–1679)

The Platonic Lady

I could love thee till I die,
Wouldst thou love me modestly,
And never press me whilst I live,
For more than willingly I’d give;
Which should sufficient be to prove
I’d understand the Art of Love.

I hate the thing is called enjoyment,
Besides, it is a dull employment.
It cuts off all that’s life and fire
From that which may be termed desire;
Just like the bee, whose sting being gone
Converts the owner to a drone.

I love a youth will give me leave
His body in my arms to wreathe,
To press him gently and to kiss,
To sigh and look with eyes that wish
For what if I could once obtain,
I would neglect with flat disdain.

I’d give him liberty to toy,
And play with me and count it joy.
Our freedoms should be full complete,
And nothing wanting but the feat.
Let’s practice then and we shall prove
These are the only sweets of Love.

John Wilmot (1647–1680)

Song: Love a Woman

Love a woman! You’re an ass!
‘Tis a most insipid passion
To choose out for your happiness
The silliest part of God’s creation.

Let the porter and the groom,
Things designed for dirty slaves,
Drudge in fair Aurelia’s womb,
To get supplies for age and graves.

Farewell woman, I intend
Henceforth every night to sit,
With my lewd well-natured friend,
Drinking to engender wit.

Then give me health, wealth, mirth, and wine,
And if busy love intrenches,
There’s a sweet soft page, of mine,
Can do the trick worth forty wenches.

John Wilmot (1647–1680)

Stella’s Birthday, 1725

As, when a beauteous nymph decays,
We say, she’s past her dancing days;
So poets lose their feet by time,
And can no longer dance in rhyme.
Your annual bard had rather chose
To celebrate your birth in prose;
Yet merry folks, who want by chance
A pair to make a country dance,
Call the old housekeeper, and get her
To fill a place for want of better;
While Sheridan is off the hooks,
And friend Delaney at his books,
That Stella may avoid disgrace,
Once more the Dean supplies their place.
Beauty and wit, too sad a truth,
Have always been confined to youth;
The god of wit and beauty’s queen,
He twenty-one and she fifteen;
No poet ever sweetly sung,
Unless he were, like Phoebus, young;
Nor ever nymph inspired to rhyme,
Unless, like Venus, in her prime.
At fifty-six, if this be true,
Am I a poet fit for you?
Or, at the age of forty-three,
Are you a subject fit for me?
Adieu, bright wit, and radiant eyes,
You must be grave and I be wise.
Our fate in vain we would oppose,
But I’ll be still your friend in prose.
Esteem and friendship to express
Will not require poetic dress;
And if the Muse deny her aid
To have them sung, they may be said.
But, Stella, say, what evil tongue
Reports you are no longer young;
That Time sits with his scythe to mow
Where erst sat Cupid with his bow;
That half your locks are turned to grey?
I’ll ne’er believe a word they say.
‘Tis true, but let it not be known,
My eyes are somewhat dimmish grown;
For nature, always in the right,
To your decays adapts my sight,
And wrinkles undistinguished pass,
For I’m ashamed to use a glass;
And till I see them with these eyes,
Whoever says you have them, lies.
No length of time can make you quit
Honour and virtue, sense and wit;
Thus you may still be young to me,
While I can better hear than see.
O ne’er may Fortune show her spite,
To make me deaf, and mend my sight.

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

To Stella, March 13, 1723-4

(Written on the Day of her Birth, but not on the Subject,
when I was sick in bed..)

Tormented with incessant pains,
Can I devise poetic strains?
Time was, when I could yearly pay
My verse on Stella’s native day;
But now, unable grown to write,
I grieve she ever saw the light.
Ungrateful; since to her I owe
That I these pains can undergo.
She tends me like an humble slave;
And, when indecently I rave,
When out my brutish passions break,
With gall in ev’ry word I speak,
She with soft speech my anguish cheers,
Or melts my passion down with tears;
Although ’tis easy to descry
She wants assistance more than I;
Yet seems to feel my pains alone,
And is a stoic in her own.
When, among scholars, can we find
So soft and yet so firm a mind?
All accidents of life conspire
To raise up Stella’s virtue higher;
Or else to introduce the rest
Which had been latent in her breast.
Her firmness who could e’er have known,
Had she not evils of her own?
Her kindness who could ever guess,
Had not her friends been in distress?
Whatever base returns you find
From me, dear Stella, still be kind.
In your own heart you’ll reap the fruit,
Though I continue still a brute.
But, when I once am out of pain,
I promise to be good again.
Meantime, your other juster friends
Shall for my follies make amends;
So may we long continue thus,
Admiring you, you pitying us.

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

The Progress of Marriage

Aetatis suae fifty-two,
A rich Divine began to woo
A handsome young imperious girl,
Nearly related to an Earl.
Her parents and her friends consent,
The couple to the temple went.
They first invite the Cyprian Queen,
’Twas answered, she would not be seen;
The Graces next, and all the Muses
Were bid in form, but sent excuses.
Juno attended at the porch,
With farthing candle for a torch,
While Mistress Iris held her train,
The faded bow distilling rain.
Then Hebe came and took her place,
But showed no more than half her face.

What’er these dire forebodings meant,
In mirth the wedding-day was spent;
The wedding-day, you take me right,
I promise nothing for the night.
The bridegroom, dressed to make a figure,
Assumes an artificial vigour,
A flourished night-cap on to grace
His ruddy, wrinkled, smirking face,
Like the faint red upon a pippin,
Half withered by a winter’s keeping.

And thus set out, this happy pair,
The Swain is rich, the Nymph is fair;
But, which I gladly would forget,
The Swain is old, the Nymph coquette;
Both from the goal together start,
Scarce run a step before they part;
No common ligament that binds
The various textures of their minds,
Their thoughts and actions, hopes and fears,
Less corresponding than their years.
Her spouse desires his coffee soon,
She rises to her tea at noon.
While he goes out to cheapen books,
She at the glass consults her looks
While Betty’s buzzing in her ear,
Lord, what a dress these Parsons wear!
So odd a choice how could she make?
Wished him a Colonel for her sake.
Then, on her fingers ends, she counts
Exact to what his age amounts;
The Dean, she heard her Uncle say,
Is fifty, if he be a day;
His ruddy cheeks are no disguise;
You see the crows-feet round his eyes.

At one she rambles to the shops,
To cheapen tea, and talk with fops;
Or calls a council of her maids
And tradesmen, to compare brocades.
Her weighty morning business o’er,
Sits down to dinner just at four;
Minds nothing that is done or said,
Her evening work so fills her head.
The Dean, who used to dine at one,
Is mawkish, and his stomach gone;
In thread-bare gown, would scarce a louse hold,
Looks like the chaplain of the household,
Beholds her from the chaplain’s place
In French brocades and Flanders lace;
He wonders what employs her brain;
But never asks, or asks in vain;
His mind is full of other cares,
And in the sneaking parson’s airs
Computes, that half a parish dues
Will hardly find his wife in shoes.
Can’st thou imagine, dull Divine,
’Twill gain her love to make her fine?
Hath she no other wants beside?
You raise desire as well as pride,
Enticing coxcombs to adore,
And teach her to despise thee more.

If in her coach she’ll condescend
To place him at the hinder end,
Her hoop is hoist above his nose,
His odious gown would soil her clothes,
And drops him at the church, to pray,
While she drives on to see the play.
He like an orderly Divine
Comes home a quarter after nine,
And meets her hasting to the Ball:
Her chairmen push him from the wall;
He enters in, and walks up stairs,
And calls the family to prayers,
Then goes alone to take his rest
In bed, where he can spare her best.
At five the footmen make a din,
Her Ladyship is just come in;
The Masquerade began at two,
She stole away with much ado,
And shall be chid this afternoon
For leaving company so soon;
She’ll say, and she may truly say’t,
She can’t abide to stay out late.

But now, though scarce a twelvemonth married
His Lady has twelve times miscarried;
The cause, alas, is quickly guessed,
The Town has whispered round the jest;
Think on some remedy in time,
You find His Reverence past his prime,
Already dwindled to a lath;
No other way but try the Bath.
For Venus rising from the ocean,
Infused a strong prolific potion,
That mixed with Achelaus’ spring,
The hornéd flood, as poets sing,
Who, with an English Beauty smitten,
Ran underground from Greece to Britain,
The genial Virtue with him brought,
And gave the Nymph a plenteous draught;
Then fled, and left his Horn behind
For husbands past their youth to find;
The Nymph who still with passion burned
Was to a boiling fountain turned,
Where childless wives crowd every morn
To drink in Achelaus’ Horn;
And here the father often gains
That title by another’s pains.

Hither, though much against his grain,
The Dean has carried Lady Jane;
He for a while would not consent,
But vowed his money all was spent;
His money spent! a clownish reason!
And must My Lady slip her Season?
The Doctor with a double fee,
Was bribed to make the Dean agree.

Here all diversions of the place
Are proper in my Lady’s case
With which she patiently complies,
Merely because her friends advise;
His money and her time employs
In music, raffling-rooms, and toys,
Or in the Cross Bath seeks an heir,
Since others oft have found one there;
Where if the Dean by chance appears,
It shames his cassock and his years;
He keeps his distance in the gallery
’Till banished by some coxcomb’s raillery,
For ’twould his character expose
To bathe among the belles and beaux.

So have I seen within a pen,
Young ducklings fostered by a hen;
But when let out, they run and muddle,
As instinct leads them, in a puddle;
The sober hen, not born to swim,
With mournful note clucks round the brim.

The Dean, with all his best endeavour,
Gets not an heir, but gets a fever;
A victim to the last essays
Of vigor in declining days,
He dies, and leaves his mourning mate
(What could he less?) his whole estate.

The widow goes through all her forms;
New lovers now will come in swarms.
Oh, may I see her soon dispensing
Her favours to some broken Ensign!
Him let her marry for his face,
And only coat of tarnished lace;
To turn her naked out of doors,
And spend her jointure on his whores:
But for a parting present leave her
A rooted pox to last for ever.

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

miscarried> had her period.

Cross Bath>A thermal bath whose use, according to the Web, goes back at least two thousand years. James II’s wife gave birth to a son nine months after bathing in it.

Lady Acheson Weary of the Dean

The Dean would visit Market-hill;
Our invitation was but slight;
I said—why—Let him if he will,
And so I bid Sir Arthur write.

His manners would not let him wait,
Lest we should think ourselves neglected,
And so we saw him at our gate
Three days before he was expected.

After a week, a month, a quarter,
And day succeeding after day,
Says not a word of his departure
Though not a soul would have him stay.

I’ve said enough to make him blush
Methinks, or else the Devil’s in’t,
But he cares not for it a rush,
Nor for my life will take the hint.

But you, My Life, must let him know,
In civil language, if he stays
How deep and foul the roads may grow,
And that he may command the chaise.

Or you may say—my wife intends,
Though I should be exceeding proud,
This winter to invite some friends,
And Sir, I know you hate a crowd.

Or, Mr. Dean—I should with joy
Beg you would here continue still,
But we must go to Aghnaclay,
Or Mr. Moor will take it ill.

The house accounts are daily rising
So much his stay does swell the bills;
My dearest Life, it is surprising
How much he eats, how much he swills.

His brace of puppies how they stuff,
And they must have three meals a day,
Yet never think they get enough;
His horses too eat all our hay.

Oh! if I could, how I would maul
His tallow face and wainscot paws,
His beetle-brows and eyes of wall,
And make him soon give up the cause.

May I be every moment chid
With Skinny, Honey, Snip, and Lean,
Oh! that I could but once be rid
Of that insulting tyrant Dean.

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

Market-hill>Markethill, a village near Sir Arthur Acheson’s estate, Gosford Demesne, where Swift had spent eight months in 1728 during the first of three annual visits, and where he got a good deal of writing done.

beetle-brows> “beetle-browed” is defined online as “1. having bushy or overhanging eyebrows; 2.sullen in appearance; scowling.”

Skinny, etc>His nicknames for her.

My Lady’s Lamentation and Complaint against the Dean

July 28, 1728

Sure never did man see
A wretch like poor Nancy,
So teaz’d day and night
By a Dean and a Knight;
To punish my sins,
Sir Arthur begins,
And gives me a swipe
With Skinny and Snipe;
His malice is plain,
Hallooing the Dean.
The Dean never stops,
When he opens his chops;
I’m quite over-run
With rebus and pun.

Before he came here
To sponge for good cheer,
I sat with delight,
From morning till night,
With two bony thumbs
Could rub my own gums,
Or scratching my nose,
And jogging my toes;
But at present, forsooth,
I must not rub a tooth:
When my elbows he sees
Held up by my knees,
My arms like two props,
Supporting my chops,
And just as I handle ’em
Moving all like a pendulum;
He trips up my props,
And down my chin drops,
From my head to my heels,
Like a clock without wheels;
I sink in the spleen,
As useless machine.

If he had his will,
I should never sit still:
He comes with his whims,
I must move my limbs;
I cannot be sweet
Without using my feet;
To lengthen my breath
He tires me to death.
By the worst of all Squires,
Thro’ bogs and thro’ briers,
Where a cow would be startled,
I’m in spite of my heart led:
And, say what I will,
Haul’d up every hill;
‘’Till, daggled and tatter’d,
My spirit’s quite shatter’d,
I return home at night,
And fast out of spite:
For I’d rather be dead,
Than it e’er should be said
I was better for him,
In stomach or limb.

But, now to my diet,
No eating in quiet,
He’s still finding fault,
Too sour or too salt:
The wing of a chick
I hardly can pick,
But trash without measure
I swallow with pleasure.

Next, for his diversion,
He rails at my person:
What court-breeding this is?
He takes me to pieces.
From shoulder to flank
I’m lean and am lank;
My nose, long and thin,
Grows down to my chin;
My chin will not stay,
But meets it half way;
My fingers, prolix,
Are ten crooked sticks:
He swears my el—bows
Are two iron crows,
Or sharp pointed rocks,
And wear out my smocks:
To ’scape them, Sir Arthur
Is forc’d to lie farther,
Or his sides they would gore
Like the tusk of a boar.

Now, changing the scene,
But still to the Dean:
He loves to be bitter at
A lady illiterate;
If he sees her but once,
He’ll swear she’s a dunce;
Can tell by her looks
A hater of books:
Thro’ each line of her face
Her folly can trace;
Which spoils ev’ry feature
Bestow’d her by nature,
But sense give a grace
To the homeliest face:
Wise books and reflection
Will mend the complexon.
(A civil Divine!
I suppose meaning mine.)
No Lady who wants them
Can ever be handsome.

I guess well enough
What he means by this stuff:
He haws and he hums,
At last out it comes.

What, Madam? No walking,
No reading, nor talking?
You’re now in your prime,
Make use of your time.
Consider, before
You come to threescore,
How the hussies will fleer
Where’er you appear:
That silly old puss
Would fain be like us,
What a figure she made
In her tarnish’d brocade?

And then he grows mild;
Come, be a good child:
If you are inclin’d
To polish your mind,
Be ador’d by the men
’Till threescore and ten,
And kill with the spleen
The jades of sixteen,
I’ll shew you the way:
Read six hours a-day.
The wits will frequent ye,
And think you but twenty.

Thus was I drawn in,
Forgive me my sin.
At breakfast he’ll ask
An account of my task.
Put a word out of joint,
Or miss but a point,
He rages and frets,
His manners forgets;
And, as I am serious,
Is very imperious.
No book for delight
Must come in my sight;
But, instead of new plays,
Dull Bacon’s Essays,
And pore ev’re day on
That nasty Pantheon.
If I be not a drudge,
Let all the world judge.
’Twere better be blind,
Than thus be confin’d.

But, while in an ill tone,
I murder poor Milton,
The Dean, you will swear,
Is at study or pray’r.
He’s all the day saunt’ring,
With labourers bant’ring,
Among his colleagues,
A parcel of Teagues,
(Whom he brings in among us
And bribes with mundungus.)
Hail fellow, well met,
All dirty and wet:
Find out, if you can,
Who’s master, who’s man;
Who makes the best figure,
The Dean or the digger;
And which is the best
At cracking a jest.
How proudly he talks
Of zigzacks and walks,
And all the day raves
Of cradles and caves;
And boasts of his feats,
His grottos and seats;
Shows all his gew-gaws,
And gapes for applause?
A fine occupation
For one of his station!
A hole where a rabbit
Would scorn to inhabit,
Dug out in an hour,
He calls it a bow’r.

But, Oh, how we laugh,
To see a wild calf
Come, driven by heat,
And foul the green seat;
Or run helter-skelter
To his arbor for shelter,
Where all goes to ruin
The Dean has been doing.
The girls of the village
Come flocking for pillage,
Pull down the fine briers,
And thorns to make fires;
But yet are so kind
To leave something behind:
No more need be said on’t,
I smell when I tread on’t.

Dear friend, Doctor Jenny,
If I could but win ye,
Or Walmsley or Whaley,
To come hither daily,
Since Fortune my foe,
Will needs have it so
That I’m, by her frowns
Condemn’d to black gowns;
No ’Squire to be found
The neighbourhood round,
(For, under the rose,
I would rather chuse those:)
If your wives will permit ye,
Come here out of pity,
To ease a poor Lady,
And beg her a play-day.
So may you be seen
No more in the spleen:
May Walmsley give wine
Like a hearty divine;
May Whaley disgrace
Dull Daniel’s whey-face;
And may your three spouses
Let you lie at friends houses.

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

rebus> “a kind of word puzzle that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. For example, H + picture of ear = Hear, or Here” (Wikipedia).

Pantheon>Panthayon, all the gods. Classical mythology?

Teagues> “Taig (also Teague, Teig and Tag)is a derogatory term for a Catholic” (Wikipedia)

mundungus> “a dark smelly tobacco”

gew-gaw> “something showy but useless and of little value…”

Doctor Jenny> a clergyman in the neighbourhood.

under the rose> sub rosa; confidentially

whey-face>pallid face

The Forsaken Wife

Methinks, ’tis strange you can’t afford
One pitying look, one parting word;
Humanity claims this as due,
But what’s humanity to you?

Cruel man! I am not blind,
Your infidelity I find;
Your want of love my ruin shows,
My broken heart, your broken vows.
Yet maugre all your rigid hate,
I will be true in spite of fate;
And one preeminence I’ll claim,
To be for ever still the same.

Show me a man that dare be true,
That dares to suffer what I do;
That can for ever sigh unheard,
And ever love without regard:
I then will own your prior claim
To love, to honour, and to fame;
But till that time, my dear, adieu,
I yet superior am to you.

Elizabeth Thomas (1675–1731)

The True Effigies of a Certain Squire: Inscribed to Clemena.

Some generous painter now assist my pen,
And help to draw the most despised of men:
Or else, oh Muse! do thou that charge supply,
Thou that art injured too as well as I;
Revenge thyself, with satire arm thy quill,
Display the man, yet own a justice still.

First, paint a large, two-handed, surly clown,
In silver waistcoat, stockings sliding down,
Shoes (let me see) a foot and half in length,
And stoutly armed with sparables for strength.
Ascend! and let a silver string appear,
Which seems to cry “A golden watch is here.”
O’er all a doily stuff, to which belongs
One pocket charged with citron peel and tongs;
T’other contains, more necessary far,
A snuffbox. comb, a glass, and handkercher,
Three parts of which hangs dangling by his side,
The fourth is wisely to a button tied:
Just as it was in former days a rule
To tie young children’s muckenders at school.
Forget not, Muse, gold buttons at the wrist,
Nor Mechlin lace to shade the clumsy fist;
Two diamond rings thy pencil next must show,
Always in sight like Prim’s, the formal beau;
But if rude company their notice spare,
Then draw that hand elated to his ear,
And at one view let diamond ring and golden bob appear.
A steenkirk next, of paltry needle stuff,
Which cost eleven guineas (cheap enough).
Next draw the giant-wig of shape profuse,
Larger than Foppington’s or Overdo’s.
The greasy front pressed down with essence lies,
The spreading elf-locks cover half his eyes;
But when he coughs or bows, what clouds of powder rise!

Enough, O Muse! thou hast described him right,
Th’emetic’s strong, I sicken at the sight:
A fop is nauseating, howe’er he’s dressed,
But this too fulsome is to be expressed.
Such hideous medley would thy work debase,
Where rake and clown, where ape and knave, appear with open face.

Yet stay, proceed and paint his awkward bow,
And if thou hast forgot, I’ll tell thee how:
Set one leg forward, draw his other back,
Nor let the lump a booby wallow lack;
His head bend downward, with obsequious quake,
Then quickly raise it with a spaniel shake.
His honours thus performed, a speech begin
May show th’obliging principles within:
Thy memory to his sense I now confine,
His be the substance, but th’expression thine.

“Madam,” he cries, “Lord, how my soul is moved
To see such silly toys by you approved!
A closet stuffed with books: pray, what’s your crime,
To superannuate before your time,
And make yourself look old and ugly in your prime?
Our modern pedants contradict the schools,
For learned ladies are but learned fools.
With every blockhead’s whim ye load your brains,
And for a shadow take a world of pains.
What is’t to you what numbers Caesar slew?
Or who at Marathon beat the de’il knows who?
Defend me, Fortune! from the wife I hate,
And let not bookish woman be my fate.
For when with rural sports fatigued I come,
And think to rest my wearied limbs at home,
No sooner shall I be retired to bed,
Than she, for one poor word, shall break poor Priscian’s head.
Perhaps you’ll say in books you virtue learn,
And, by right reason, good from ill discern:
Ha, ha! believe me, virtue’s but pretence
To cloak hypocrisy and insolence;
Let woman mind her economic care,
And let the man what he thinks fit prepare
(What he thinks fit, I say, or please to spend,
For those are fools that on their wives depend).
Nor need they musty books to pass their time.
There’s twenty recreations more sublime.
When tired with work, then let them to the play;
If fair, go visit; if a rainy day,
In cards and chat drive lazy time away.
No, hang me if I speak not as I mean:
If on my nuptial day there is not seen
Of all my spouse’s books a stately pyre,
Which she herself obediently shall fire;
And oh! might Europe’s learning in that blaze expire.
Now Madam, pray, the mighty difference show:
I eat, I drink, I sleep as well as you;
I know by custom two and two is four;
My man is honest, then what need I more?
And truly speak it to my joy and praise,
I never read six books in all my days.
Nor should my son; for could my wish prevail,
Blest ignorance I’d on my race entail.
Unthinking and unlearned, in plenteous ease,
My happy heir each appetite should please;
And when chance strikes the last unlucky blow,
Glutted with life, I’d have him boldly go
To try that somewhat or that naught below.”

How is’t, my friend? Can you your spleen contain
At this ignoble wretch, this less than man?
Trust me, I’m weary, can repeat no more,
And own this folly worse than when ‘twas acted o’er.

Elizabeth Thomas (1675–1731)

My Little Bird

My little Bird, how canst thou sit
And sing amidst so many Thorns?
Let me but hold upon thee get,
My Love with Honour thee adorn.

Thou art at present little worth;
Five farthings none will give for thee;
But prithee little Bird come forth,
Thou of more value art to me.

’Tis true it is Sun-shine today,
Tomorrow Birds will have a Storm;
My pretty one, come thou away,
My Bosom then shall keep thee warm.

Thou subject are to cold o’ nights,
When darkness is thy covering;
At days thy danger’s great by Kites,
How canst thou then sit there and sing?

Thy food is scarce and scanty too,
’Tis Worms and Trash which thou dost eat;
Thy present state I pity do,
Come, I’ll provide thee better meat.

I’ll feed thee with white Bread and Milk
And Sugar-plums, if them thou crave;
I’ll cover thee with finest silk,
That from the cold I may thee save.

My Father’s Palace shall be thine,
Yea, in it thou shall sit and sing;
My little Bird, if thou’lt be mine,
The whole year round shall be thy Spring.

I’ll teach thee all the notes at Court;
Unthought of Musick thou shalt play;
And all that thither do resort,
Shall praise thee for it ev’ry day.

I’ll keep thee safe from Cat and Cur,
No manner o’ harm shall come to thee;
Yea, I will be thy Succourer,
My Bosom shall thy Cabbin be.

But lo, behold, the Bird is gone;
These Charmings would not make her yield;
The Child’s left at the Bush alone,
The Bird flies yonder o’er the Field.

John Bunyan (1628–1688)

Lucky Spence’s Last Advice

See glossary and Note

Three times the carline grain’d and rifted,
Then frae the Cod her Pow she lifted,
In bawdy Policy well gifted,
When she now faun
That Death na longer wad be shifted,
She thus began:

My loving lasses, I maun leave ye;
But dinna wi’ ye’r Greeting grieve me,
Nor wi’ your Draunts and Droning deave me,
But bring’s a Gill;
For Faith, my Bairns, ye may believe me,
‘Tis gainst my Will.

O black Ey’d Bess, and mim Mou’d Meg,
O’er good to work, or yet to beg,
Lay Sunkots up for a sair Leg;
For when ye fail,
Ye’r Face will not be worth a Feg,
Nor yet ye’r Tail.

Whan’er ye meet a Fool that’s fow,
That ye’re a Maiden gar him trow,
Seem nice, but stick to him like Glew
And when set down,
Drive at the Jango till he spew,
Syne he’ll sleep soun.

When he’s asleep, then dive and catch
His ready Cash, his Rings, or Watch;
And gin he likes to light his Match
At your Spunk-box,
Ne’er stand to let the fumbling wretch
E’en take the Pox.

Cleek a’ ye can by Hook or Crook,
Ryp ilky Poutch frae Nook to Nook;
Be sure to truff his Pocket-book—
Saxty Pounds Scots
Is nae deaf Nits: in little Bouk
Lie great Bank-Notes.

To get a Mends of whinging Fools
That’s frighted for Repenting-Stools,
Wha often whan their Metal cools
Turn sweer to pay;
Gar the Kirk-Boxie hale the dools
Anither day.

But dawt Red-Coats, and let them scoup
Free for the Fou of cutty Stoup;
To gee them up, ye needna hope
E’er to do weel:
They’ll rive ye’r Brats, and kick your Doup,
And play the Deel.

There’s ae sair Cross attends the Craft,
That curst Correction-house, where aft
Vild Hangy’s Taz ye’er Riggings saft
Makes black and blae,
Enough to pit a body daft;
But what’ll ye say.

Nane gathers Gear withoutten Care,
Ilk Pleasure has of Pain a Skare;
Suppose then they should tirle ye bare,
And gar ye sike,
E’en learn to thole; ’tis very fair,
Ye’re Nibour like.

Forby, my Looves, count upo’ Losses,
Ye’r Milk-white Teeth, and Cheeks like Roses,
Whan Jet-black Hair and Brigs of Noses
Faw down wi’ Dads,
To keep your Hearts up ’neath sic Crosses,
Set up for Bawds.

Wi’ well crish’d Loofs I hae been canty.
Whan e’er the Lads would fain ha’e faun t’ye
To try the auld Game Taunty-Raunty,
Like Coofers keen,
They took Advice of me, your Aunty,
If you were clean.

Then up I took my Siller Ca’,
And whistl’d benn, whiles ane, whiles twa;
Roun’d in his Lug, That there was a
Poor Country Kate,
As halesome as the Well of Spaw,
But unka blate.

Sae when e’er Company came in,
And were upon a merry Pin,
I slade awa’ wi’ little Din,
And muckle Mense,
Lest Conscience judge, it was a’ ane
To Lucky Spence.

My Bennison come on good Doers,
Wha spend their cash on bawds and whores;
May they ne’er want the Wale of Cures
For a sair Snout:
Foul fa’ the Quacks wha that Fire smoors,
And puts nae out.

My Malison light ilka Day
On them that drink and dinna pay,
But tak a Snack and rin away;
May’t be their Hap
Never to want a Gonorrhea
Or rotten clap.

Lass, gi’e us in anither Gill.
A Mutchken, Jo, let’s tak our Fill;
Let Death syne registrate his Bill
Whan I want Sense,
I’ll slip away with better Will.
Quo’ Lucky Spence.

Allan Ramsay (1686–1758)

O Waly, Waly

O waly, waly, up yon bank, And waly, waly down yon brae; And waly by yon river’s side, Where my love and I was wont to gae.

Waly, waly, gin love be bonny, A little while when it is new; But when it’s auld, it waxes cauld And wears away, like morning dew.

I leant my back unto an aik, I thought it was a trusty tree; But first it bow’d, and sine it brake, And sae did my fause love to me.

When cockle-shells turn siller bells, And muscles grow on ev’ry tree; When frost and snaw shall warm us a’, Then shall my love prove true to me.

Now Arthur-Seat shall be my bed, The sheets shall ne’er by fyl’d by me; Saint Anton’s Well shall be my drink, Since my true love has forsaken me.

O Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw, And shake the green leaves off the tree? O gentle death, when wilt thou come? And take a life that wearies me.

‘Tis not the frost that freezes fell,
Nor blawing snaw’s inclemency;
‘Tis not sic cauld that makes me cry,
But my love’s heart grown cauld to me.

When we came in by Glasgow town,
We were a comely sight to see;
My love was clad in the black velvet,
And I my sell in cramaisie.

But had I wist, before I kiss’d,
The love had been sae ill to win,
I’d locked my heart in a case of gold,
And pin’d it with a silver pin.

Oh, oh, if my young babe were born,
And set upon the nurse’s knee,
And I my sell were dead and gane!
For a maid again I’ll never be.

Anonymous

Waly> exclamation of sorrow; syne>then; aik>oak; busk>adorn;
Arthur-seat> hill in Edinburgh; fyl’d> defiled, soiled;
Saint Anton’s Well>below Arthur’s Seat; Martinmas>November; cramasie>crimson

The Life and Death of the Piper of Kilbarchan

Or,
The Epitaph of Habbie Simson,
Who on his Dron bore bonny Flags;
He made his Cheeks as red as crimson,
And babbed when he blew his Bags.

See glossary and Note

Kilbarchan now may say, alas!
For she hath lost her Game and Grace,
Both Trixie and the Maiden Trace:
But what Remeed?
For no man can supply his Place,
Hab Simson’s dead.

Now who shall play The Day it daws?
Or Hunts up, when the Cock he craws?
Or who can for our Kirk-towns Cause,
Stand us instead?
On Bag-pipes now no body blaws,
Sen Habbie’s dead.

Or who shall cause our Shearers shear?
Who will bend up the Brags of Weir,
Bring in the Bells, or good play Meir,
In Time of Need?
Hab Simson could, what need you speir?
But now he’s dead.

So kindly to his Neighbours neist,
At Beltan and Saint Barchan’s Feast,
He blew and then held up his Breist,
As he were weid,
But now we need not him arreist;
For Habbie’s dead.

At Fairs he play’d before the Spear-Men,
All gayly graithed in their Gear-men.
Steel Bonnets, Jacks, and Swords so clear then
Like any Bead,
Now who shall play before such Weir-Men,
Sen Habbie’s dead?

At Clark-Plays when he wont to come;
His Pipe play’d trimly to the Drum,
Like Bikes of Bees he gart it bum,
And tun’d his Reed:
Now all our Pipers may sing dumb,
Sen Habbie’s dead.

And at Horse-Races many a Day,
Before the Black, the Brown, the Gray,
He gart his Pipe when he did play,
Baith skirl and skried:
Now all such Pastim’s quite away,
Sen Habbie’s dead.

He counted was a wail’d wight Man,
And fiercely at Foot-baill he ran;
At every Game the Gree he wan,
For Pith and Speed;
The like of Habbie was not than,
But now he’s dead.

And than beside his valiant Acts,
At Brydels he wan many Placks,
He babbed ay behind Folks Backs,
And shook his Head.
Now we want many merry Cracks,
Sen Habbie’s dead.

He was convoyer of the Bride;
With Kittock hanging at his side,
About the Kirk he thought a Pride,
The Ring to lead.
But now she may go but a Guide;
For Habbie’s dead.

So well’s he keeped his Decorum,
And all the Steps of Whip meg morum,
He slew a Man, and wae’s me for him,
And bare the Fead!
But yet the man wan Hame before him,
And was not dead!

Ay when he play’d the Lasses leugh,
To see him toothless, old and teuch.
He wan his Pipes beside Barheugh,
Withoutten dread:
Which after wan him Gear enough,
But now he’s dead.

[Ay whan he play’d, the Gaitlings gedder’d,
And whan he spake, the Carl bledder’d:
On Sabbath Days his Cap was fedder’d,
A seemly Weid.
In the Kirk-yeard his Mare stood tedder’d,
Where he was dead.]

Alas! for him my Heart is sare,
For of his Springs I got a Share,
At every play, Race, Feast and Fair,
But Guile or Greed.
We need not look for Piping mair,
Sen Habbie’s dead.

Robert Sempill (1595?–1660?)

A Receipt to Cure the Vapours

Why will Delia thus retire
And idly languish life away?
While the sighing crowds admire,
’Tis too soon for hartshorn tea.

All those dismal looks and fretting
Cannot Damon’s life restore;
Long ago the worms have ate him,
You can never see him more.

Once again consult your toilet,
In the glass your face review;
So much weeping soon will spoil it,
And no spring your charms renew.

I like you was born a woman—
Well I know what vapours mean;
The disease alas! is common;
Single, we have all the spleen.

All the morals that they tell us
Never cured sorrow yet;
Choose among the pretty fellows
One of humour, youth, and wit.

Prithee hear him every morning
For at least an hour or two,
Once again at night returning—
I believe the dose will do.

Mary Montagu (1689–1762)

Receipt> Recipe.

Hartshorn > “ammonium carbonate, used in smelling salts; sal volatile; so called because formerly obtained from deers’ antlers.” Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th ed,

vapours> “ (a) exhalations from the stomach believed to be harmful to one’s health; (b) hypochondria or depressed spirits (often with ‘the’).” ibid

The Reasons That Induced Dr Swift to Write a Poem Called “The Lady’s Dressing Room”

The Doctor in a clean, starched band,
His Golden Snuff box in his hand,
With care his Diamond Ring displays
And Artful shows its various Rays,
While Grave he stalks down — — Street
His dearest Betty — to meet.

Long had he waited for this Hour,
Nor gained admittance to the Bower,
Had joked and punned, and swore and writ,
Tried all his Gallantry and Wit,
Had told her oft what part he bore
In Oxford’s Schemes in days of yore,
But Bawdy, Politicks, nor Satyr
Could move this dull, hard-hearted Creature.
Jenny, her Maid, could taste a Rhyme,
And grieved to see him lose his Time,
Had kindly whispered in his Ear,
For twice two pounds you enter here.
My Lady vows, without that Sum
It is in vain you write or come.

The Destined Offering now he brought
And in a paradise of thought,
With a low bow approached the Dame
Who smiling heard him preach his Flame.
His Gold she takes (such proofs as these
Convince most unbelieving shees),
And in her trunk rose up to lock it
(Too wise to trust it to her pocket),
And then returned with Blushing Grace,
Expects the Doctor’s warm Embrace.

But now this is the proper place
Where morals Stare me in the Face
And for the sake of fine Expression
I’m forced to make a small digression.
Alas for wretched Humankind,
With Learning Mad, with wisdom blind!
The Ox thinks he’s for Saddle fit
(As long ago Friend Horace writ)
And Men their Talents still mistaking,
The stutterer fancies his is speaking.
With Admiration oft we see
Hard Features heightened by Toupée,
The Beau affects the Politician,
Wit is the citizen’s Ambition,
Poor Pope Philosophy displays on
With so much Rhyme and little reason,
And tho’ he argues ne’er so long
That all is right, his Head is wrong.

None strive to know their proper merit
But strain for Wisdom, Beauty, Spirit,
And lose the Praise that is their due
While they’ve th’impossible in view.
So have I seen the Injudicious Heir
To add one Window the whole House impair.

Instinct the Hound does better teach
Who never undertook to preach,
The frighted Hare from Dogs does run
But not attempts to bear a Gun.
How many Noble thoughts occur
But I prolixity abhor,
And will pursue th’instructive Tale
To show the Wise in some things fail.

The Reverend Lover with surprise
Peeps in her Bubbies, and her Eyes,
And kisses both, and tries—and tries.
The Evening in this Hellish Play,
Beside his Guineas thrown away,
Provoked the Priest to that degree
He swore, the Fault is not in me.
Your damned Close stool so near my Nose.
Your Dirty Smock, and Stinking Toes
Would make a Hercules as tame
As any Beau that you can name.

The nymph grown Furious roared by God
The blame lies all in Sixty odd
And scornful pointing to the door
Cried Fumbler see my Face no more.
With all my Heart I’ll go away
But nothing done, I’ll nothing pay.
Give back the Money—How, cried she,
Would you palm such a cheat on me!
For poor four pound to roar and bellow,
Why sure you want some new Prunella?
I’ll be revenged you saucy Quean
(Replies the disappointed Dean)
I’ll so describe your dressing room
The very Irish shall not come.
She answered short, I’m glad you’ll write,
You’ll furnish paper when I shite.

Mary Montagu (1689–1762)

Oxford>Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford , with whom and his fellow Tory Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolinbroke, Swift had been intimate for a while.

To Mrs. Frances-Arabella Kelly

Today as at my glass I stood,
To set my head-clothes and my hood,
I saw my grizzled locks with dread,
And called to mind the Gorgon’s head.

Thought I, whate’er the poets say,
Medusa’s hair was only grey:
Though Ovid, who the story told,
Was too well-bred to call her old;
But, what amounted to the same,
He made her an immortal dame.
Yet now, whene’er a matron sage
Hath felt the rugged hand of age,
You hear our witty coxcombs cry,
‘Rot that old witch—she’ll never die’;
Though, had they but a little reading,
Ovid would teach them better breeding.

I fancy now I hear you say,
‘Grant heaven my locks may ne’er be grey!
Why am I told this frightful story,
To beauty a memento mori?’

And, as along the room you pass,
Casting your eye upon the glass,
‘Surely,’ say you, ‘this lovely face
Will never suffer such disgrace:
The bloom, that on my cheek appears,
Will never be impaired by years.
Her envy, now I plainly see,
Makes her inscribe those lines to me.
These beldames, who were born before me,
Are grieved to see the men adore me::
Their snaky locks freeze up the blood;
My tresses fire the purple flood.

‘Unnumbered slaves around me wait,
And from my eyes expect their fate.
I own of conquest I am vain,
Though I despise the slaves I gain.
Heaven gave me charms, and destined me
To universal tyranny.’

Mary Barber (1690–1757)

Song

Foolish eyes, thy streams give over,
Wine, not water, binds the lover:
At the table then be shining,
Gay coquette, and all designing.
To th’addressing foplings bowing,
And thy smile or hand allowing,
Whine no more thy sacred passion,
Out of nature, out of fashion.

Let him, disappointed, find thee
False as he, nor dream to bind thee,
While he breaks all tender measures,
Murdering love and all its pleasures.
Shall a look or word deceive thee,
Which he once an age will give thee?
Oh! No more, no more excuse him,
Like a dull deserter use him.

Martha Sansom (1690–1736)

The Humble Wish

I ask not wit, nor beauty do I crave,
Nor wealth, nor pompous titles wish to have;
But since ‘tis doomed, in all degrees of life
(Whether a daughter, sister, or a wife),
That females shall the stronger males obey,
And yield perforce to their tyrannic sway;
Since this, I say is every woman’s fate,
Give me a mind to suit my slavish state.

Arabella Moreton (after 1690–before 1741)

On a Death’s Head

On this resemblance, where we find
A portrait drawn for all mankind,
Fond lover! Gaze awhile, to see
What beauty’s idol charms shall be.
Where are the balls that once could dart
Quick lightning through the wounded heart?
The skin, whose tint could once unite
The glowing red and polished white?
The lip in brighter ruby dressed?
The cheek with dimpled smiles impressed?
The rising front, where Beauty sate
Throned in her residence of state;
Which half-disclosed and half-concealed,
The hair in flowing ringlets veiled?
‘Tis vanished all! Remains alone
The eyeless scalp of naked bone,
The vacant orbits sunk within,
The jaw that offers at a grin.
Is this the object then that claims
The tribute of our youthful flames?
Must amorous hopes and fancied bliss,
Too dear delusions, end in this?
How high does Melancholy swell!
Which sighs can more than language tell;
Till love can only grieve or fear:
Reflect awhile, then drop a tear
For all that’s beautiful and dear.

(1724)

Elizabeth Tollet (1694–1754)

Written to a Near Neighbour in a Tempestuous Night, 1748

You bid my muse not cease to sing,
You bid my ink not cease to flow;
Then say it ever shall be spring,
And boisterous winds shall never blow:
When you such miracles can prove,
I’ll sing of friendship, or of love.

But now, alone, by storms oppressed,
Which harshly in my ears resound;
No cheerful voice with witty jest,
No jocund pipe, to still the sound;
Untrained beside in verse-like art,
How shall my pen express my heart?

In vain I call th’harmonious Nine,
In vain implore Apollo’s aid;
Obdurate, they refuse a line,
While spleen and care my rest invade.
Say, shall we Morpheus next implore,
And try if dreams befriend us more?

Wisely at least he’ll stop my pen,
And with his poppies crown my brow:
Better by far in lonesome den
To sleep unheard-of—than to glow
With treacherous wildfire of the brain,
Th’intoxicated poet’s bane.

Henrietta Knight (1699-1756)

An Epistle to Lady Bowyer

How much of paper’s soiled! What floods of ink!
And yet how few, how very few can think!
The knack of writing is an easy trade;
But to think well requires—at least a head.
Once in an age, one genius may arise,
With wit well-cultured, and with learning wise
Like some tall oak, behold his branches shoot!
No tender scions sprouting at the root.
Whilst lofty Pope erects his laurelled head,
No lays like mine can live beneath his shade
Nothing but weeds, and moss, and shrubs are found.
Cut, cut them down, why cumber they the ground?

And yet you’d have me write!—For what? For whom?
To curl a favourite in a dressing-room?
To mend a candle when the snuff’s too short?
Or save rappee for chamber-maids at court?
Glorious ambition! noble thirst of fame!—
No, but you’d have me write—to get a name.
Alas! I’d live unknown, unenvied too,
‘Tis more than Pope with all his wit can do;
‘Tis more than you with wit and beauty joined,
A pleasing form, and a discerning mind.
The world and I are no such cordial friends;
I have my purpose, they their various ends.
I say my prayers, and lead a sober life,
Nor laugh at Cornus, or at Cornus’ wife.
What’s fame to me, who pray, and pay my rent?
If my friends know me honest, I’m content.

Well, but the joy to see my works in print!
Myself too pictured in a mezzotint!
The preface done, the dedication framed,
With lies enough to make a lord ashamed!
Thus I step forth, an Auth’ress in some sort;
My patron’s name? ‘O choose some lord at court.
One that has money which he does not use,
One you may flatter much, that is, abuse.
For if you’re nice, and cannot change your note,
Regardless of the trimmed, or untrimmed coat,
Believe me, friend, you’ll ne’er be worth a groat.

Well then, to cut this mighty matter short,
I’ve neither friend nor interest at Court.
Quite from St. James’s to thy stairs, Whitehall,
I barely know a creature, great or small,
Except one Maid of Honour, worth them all.
I have no business there—Let those attend
The courtly levee, or the courtly friend,
Who more than fate allows them dare to spend;
Or those whose avarice, with much, craves more,
The pensioned beggar, or the titled poor.
These are the thriving breed, the tiny great!
Slaves! wretched slaves! the journeymen of state.
Philosophers! who calmly bear disgrace,
Patriots who sell their country for a place.
Shall I for these disturb my brains with rhyme?
For these, like Bavius creep, or Glencus climb?
Shall I go late to rest, and early rise,
To be the very creature I despise?
With face unmoved, my poems in my hand,
Cringe to the porter, with the footman stand?
Perhaps my lady’s maid, if not too proud,
Will creep, you’ll say, to wink me from the crowd.
Will entertain me, till his lordship’s dressed,
With what my lady eats, and how she rests:
How much she gave for such a Birthday-gown,
And how she tramped to every shop in town.

Sick at the news, impatient for my lord,
I’m forced to hear, nay smile at every word.
Tom raps at last—‘His lordship begs to know
Your name? Your business?—‘Sir, I’m not a foe:
I come to charm his lordship’s listening ears
With verses, soft as music of the spheres.’
‘Verses!—Alas! his lordship seldom reads;
Pedants indeed with learning stuff their heads;
But my good lord, as all the world can tell,
Reads not ev’n tradesmen’s bills, and scorns to spell.
But trust your lays with me—some things I’ve read,
Was born a poet, though no poet bred:
And if I find they’ll bear my nicer view,
I’ll recommend your poetry—and you.’

Shocked at his civil impudence, I start,
Pocket my poem, asnd in hast depart;
Resolved no more to offer up my wit,
Where footmen in the seat of critics sit.

Is there a Lord whose great unspotted soul,
Not places, persons, ribbons can control;
Unlaced, unpowdered, almost unobserved,
Eats not on silver while his train are starved;
Who, though to nobles or to kings allied,
Dares walk on foot, while slaves in coaches ride;
With merit humble, and with greatness free,
Has bowed to Freeman, and has dined with me;
Who, bred in foreign courts, and early known,
Has yet to learn the cunning of his own;
To titles born, yet heir to no estate,
And harder still, too honest to be great;
If such an one there be, well-bred, polite,
To him I’ll dedicate, for him I’ll write.

Peace to the rest—I can be no man’s slave;
I ask for nothing, though I nothing have.
By fortune humbled, yet not sunk so low
To shame a friend, or fear to meet a foe.
Meanness, in ribbons or in rags, I hate;
And have not learned to flatter ev’n the great.
Few friends I ask, and those who love me well;
What more remains, these artless lines shall tell.

Of honest parents, not of great, I came;
Not known to fortune, quite unknown to fame.
Frugal and plain, at no man’s cost I eat,
Nor knew a baker’s or a butcher’s debt.
O be their precepts ever in my eye!
For one has learned to live, and one to die.
Long may her widowed age by heaven be lent
Among my blessings! and I’m well content.
I ask no more, but in some calm retreat
To sleep in quiet and in quiet eat.
No noisy slaves attending round my room;
My viands wholesome, and my waiters dumb.
No orphans cheated, and no widow’s curse,
No household lord, for better or for worse.
No monstrous sums to tempt my soul to sin,
But just enough to keep me plain and clean.
And if sometimes, to smooth the rugged way,
Charlot should smile, or you approve my lay,
Enough for me—I cannot put my trust
In lords, smile lies, eat toads, or lick the dust.
Fortune her favours much too dear may hold:
An honest heart is worth its weight in gold.

Mary Jones (d. 1778)

A New Prologue Spoken at the Representation of Comus

Ye patriot crowds, who burn for England’s fame,
Ye nymphs, whose bosoms beat at Milton’s name,
Whose generous zeal, unbought by flattering rhymes,
Shames the mean pensions of Augustan times;
Immortal patrons of succeeding days,
Attend this prelude of perpetual praise!
Let wit, condemned the feeble war to wage
With close malevolence, or public rage;
Let study, worn with virtue’s fruitless lore,
Behold this theatre, and grieve no more.
This night, distinguished by your smile, shall tell,
That never Briton can in vain excel;
The slighted arts futurity shall trust,
And rising ages hasten to be just.
At length our mighty bard’s victorious lays
Fill the loud voice of universal praise,
And baffled spite, with hopeless anguish dumb,
Yields to renown the centuries to come.
With ardent haste, each candidate of fame
Ambitious catches at his towering name:
He sees, and pitying sees, vain wealth bestow
Those pageant honours which he scorned below:
While crowds aloft the laureate bust behold,
Or trace his form on circulating gold,
Unknown, unheeded, long his offspring lay,
And want hung threatening o’er her slow decay.
What though she shine with no Miltonian fire,
No favouring Muse her morning dreams inspire;
Yet softer claims the melting heart engage,
Her youth laborious, and her blameless age:
Hers the mild merits of domestic life,
The patient sufferer and the faithful wife.
Thus graced with humble virtue’s native charms
Her grandsire leaves her in Britannia’s arms,
Secure with peace, with competence, to dwell,
While tutelary nations guard her cell.
Yours is the charge, ye fair, ye wise, ye brave!
‘Tis yours to crown desert—beyond the grave!

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

On Lord Holland’s Seat Near Margate, Kent

Old and abandoned by each venal friend,
Here Holland took the pious resolution
To smuggle some few years and strive to mend
A broken character and constitution.

On this congenial spot he fixed his choice,
Earl Godwin trembled for his neighbouring sand;
Here seagulls scream and cormorants rejoice,
And mariners though shipwrecked dread to land.

Here reign the blustering north and blighting east,
No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing,
Yet nature cannot furnish out the feast,
Art he invokes new horrors still to bring.

Now mouldering fanes and battlements arise,
Arches and turrets nodding to their fall,
Unpeopled palaces delude his eyes,
And mimic desolation covers all.

Ah, said the sighing peer, had Bute been true
Nor Shelburn’s, Rigby’s, Calcraft’s friendship vain,
Far other scenes than these had blessed our view,
And realized the ruins that we feign.

Purged by the sword and beautified by fire,
Then had we seen proud London’s hated walls,
Owls might have hooted in St. Peter’s choir,
And foxes stunk and littered in St. Paul’s.

Thomas Gray (1716–1771)

A Lament for Flodden

I’ve heard them lilting at our ewe-milking,
Lasses a-lilting before dawn o’ day;
But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning:
The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

At bughts in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning,
Lassies are lonely and dowie and wae;
Nae daffing, nae gabbing, but sighing and sabbing:
Ilk ane lifts her leglin and hies her away.

In hairst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
Bandsters are lyart, and runkled, and gray:
At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching—
The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

At e’en, in the gloaming, nae swankies are roaming
’Bout stacks wi’ the lasses at bogle to play;
But ilk ane sits earie, lamenting her dearie—
The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border!
The English, for ance, by guile wan the day;
The Flowers of the Forest, that fought aye the foremost,
The prime of our land, lie cauld in the clay.

We’ll hear nae mair lilting at our ewe-milking;
Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning—
The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

(1769)

Jean Elliot (1727–1805)

ane > one;   bandsters > binders;   bogle > bogy, hide-and-seek;   bughts > sheep-folds;  
daffing > joking;   dool > grief;   dowie > sad;   eerie > dreary;  
fleeching > coaxing;   hairst > harvest;   ilk > each;   ilka > each;  
leglin > milk-pail;   loaning > lane, field track;   lyart > gray-haired;  
runkled > wrinkled;   swankies > lusty lads;   wae > wretched;   wede > weeded.

Charles Churchill, “The Dedication to the Sermons”

HEALTH to great Gloster—from a man unknown,
Who holds thy health as dearly as his own,
Accept this greeting—nor let modest fear
Call up one maiden blush—I mean not here
To wound with flattery—‘tis a villain’s art,
And suits not with the frankness of my heart.
Truth best becomes an Orthodox Divine
And, spite of hell, that Character is mine;
To speak e’en bitter truths I cannot fear;
But truth, my Lord, is panegyric here.

Health to great Gloster—nor, through love of ease,
Which all Priests love, let this address displease
I ask no favor, nor one note I crave,
And, when this busy brain rests in the grave,
(For till that time it never can have rest)
I will not trouble you with one bequest.
Some humbler friend, my mortal journey done,
More near in blood, a Nephew or a Son,
In that dread hour Executor I’ll leave;
For I, alas, have many to receive,
To give but little—To great Gloster Health;
Nor let thy true and proper love of wealth
Here take a false alarm—in purse though poor,
In spirit I’m right proud, nor can endure
The mentionof a bribe—thy pocket’s free,
I, though a Dedicator, scorn a fee.
Let thy own offspring all thy fortunes share;
I would not Allen rob nor Allen’S heir.

Think not a Thought unworthy thy great soul,
Which pomps of this world never could control,
Which never offered up at Power’s vain shrine,
Think not that Pomp and Power can work on mine.
‘Tis not thy Name, though that indeed is great,
‘Tis not thy tinsel trumpery of state,
‘Tis not thy Title, Doctor though thou art,
’Tis not thy Mitre, which hath won my heart.
State is a farce, Names are but empty Things,
Degrees are bought, and by mistaken kings,
Titles are oft misplaced; Mitres, which shine
So bright in other eyes, are dull in mine,
Unless set off by Virtue; who deceives
Under the sacred sanction of Lawn-Sleeves,
Enhances guilt, commits a double sin,
So fair without, and yet so foul within.
‘Tis not thy outward form, thy easy mien,
Thy sweet complacency, thy brow serene,
Thy open front, thy Love-commanding eye,
Where fifty Cupids, as in ambush, lie,
Which can from sixty to sixteen impart
The force of Love, and point his blunted dart;
‘Tis not thy Face, though that by Nature’s made
An Index to thy soul, though there displayed;
We see thy mind at large, and through thy skin
Peeps out that Courtesy which dwells within;
‘Tis not thy Birth—for that is low as mine,
Around our heads no lineal glories shine—
But what is Birth, when, to delight mankind,
Heralds can make those arms they cannot find;
When Thou art to Thyself, thy Sire unknown,
A whole Welsh genealogy alone?
No, ’tis thy inward Man, thy proper Worth,
Thy right just Estimation here n earth,
Thy Life and Doctrine uniformly joined,
And flowing from that wholesome source thy mind,
Thy known contempt for Persecution’s rod,
Thy Charity for Man, thy Love of God,
Thy faith in Christ, so well approved ’mongst men,
Which now gives life and utterance to my pen’
Thy Virtue, not thy Rank, demands my lays;
‘Tis not the Bishop, but the Saint I praise
Raised by that Theme, I soar on wings more strong,
And burst forth into praise withheld too long.

Much did I wish, e’en while I kept those sheep
Which, for my curse, I was ordained to keep;
Ordained, alas! To keep through need, not choice,
Those sheep which never heard their shepherd’s voice,
Which did not know, yet would not learn their way,
Which strayed themselves, yet grieved that I should stray,
Those sheep, which my good father (on his bier
Let filial duty drop the pious tear)
Kept well, yet starved himself, e’en at that time
Whilst I was pure, and innocent of rime,
Whilst, sacred Dullness ever in my view,
Sleep at my bidding crept from pew to pew,
Which did I wish, though little could I hope,
A Friend in him, who was the Friend of Pope.

His hand, said I, my youthful steps shall guide,
And lead me safe where thousands fall beside;
His Temper, his Experience shall control,
And hush to peace the tempest of my soul;
His judgment teach me, from the Critic school,
How not to err, and how to err by rule;
Instruct me, mingling profit with delight,
Where Pope was wrong, where Shakespeare was not right;
Where they are justly praised, and where through whim,
How little’s due to them, how much to him
Raised ’bove the slavery of common rules,
Of Commonsense, of modern, ancient schools,
Those feelings banished, which mislead us all,
Fools as we are, and which we Nature call,
He, by his grand example, might impart
A better something, and baptize it Art;
He all the feelings of my youth forgot,
Might show me what is Taste, by what is not;
By him supported, with a proper pride,
I might hold all mankind as fools beside;
He (should a World, perverse and peevish grown,
Explode his maxime, and assert their own)
Might teach me, like himself, to be content,
And let their folly be their punishment;
Might, like himself, teach his adopted Son,
‘Gainst all the World, to quote a Warburton.
Fool that I was, could I so much deceive
My soul with lying hopes; could I believe
That he, the servant of his Maker sworn,
The servant of his Saviour, would be torn
From their embrace, and leave that dear employ,
The cure of souls, his duty and his joy,
For toys like mine, and waste his precious time,
On which so much depended, for a rime?
Should he forsake the task he undertook,
Desert his flock, and break his pastoral crook?
Should he (forbid it Heaven) so high in place,
So rich in knowledge, quit the world of Grace,
And, idly wandering o’er the Muses’ hill,
Let the salvation of mankind stand still?

Far, far be that from Thee—yes, far from Thee
Be such revolt from Grace, and far from me
The skill to think it—Guilt is in the Thought—
Not so, Not so, hath Warburton been taught,
Not so learned Christ—recall that day, well-known,
When (to maintain God’s honor—and his own)
He called Blasphemers forth—Methinks I now
See stern Rebuke enthroned on his brow,
And armed with tenfold terrors—from his tongue,
Where fiery zeal, and Christian fury hung,
Methinks I hear the deep-toned thunders roll,
And chill with horror every sinner’s soul—
In vain They strive to fly—flight cannot save,
And Potter trembles even in his grave—
With all the conscious pride of innocence,
Methinks I hear him, in his own defense,
Bear witness to himself, whilst all Men knew,
By Gospel-rules, his witness to be true.

O Glorious Man, thy zeal I must commend,
Though it deprived me of my dearest friend,
The real motives of thy anger known,
Wilkes must the justice of that anger own;
And, could thy bosom have been bared to view,
Pitied himself, in turn had pitied you.

Bred to the law, You wisely took the gown,
Which I, like Demas, foolishly laid down,
Hence double strength our Holy Mother drew;
Me she got rid of, and made prize of you.
I, like an idle Truant, fond of play,
Doting on toys, and throwing gems away,
Grasping at shadows, let the substance slip;
But you, my Lord, renounced Attorneyship
With brutal purpose, and more noble aim,
And wisely played a more substantial game
Nor did Law mourn, blessed in her younger son,
For Mansfield does what Gloster would have done.

Doctor, Dean, Bishop, Gloster, and My Lord,
If haply these high Titles may accord
With thy meek Spirit, if the barren sound
Of pride delights Thee, to the topmost round
Of Fortune’s ladder got, despise not One,
For want of smooth hypocrisy undone,
Who, far below, turns up his wandering eye,
And, without envy, sees The placed so high,
Let not thy Brain (as Brains less potent might,
Dizzy, confounded, giddy with the height,
Turn round and lose distinction, lose her skill
And wonted powers of knowing good from ill,
Of sifting Truth from falsehood, friends from foes,
Let Gloster well remember, how he rose,
Nor turn his back on men who made him great;
Let him not, gorged with power and drunk with state,
Forget what once he was, though now so high,
How low, how mean, and fall as poor as I.

Cetera desunt [The rest is missing.]

Charles Churchill (1731–1784)

The Lady’s Diary

Lectured by Pa and Ma o’er night,
Monday at ten quite vexed and jealous,
Resolved in future to be right,
And never listen to the fellows:
Stitched half a wristband, read the text,
Received a note from Mrs Racket:
I hate that woman, she sat next
All church-time to sweet Captain Clackit.

Tuesday got scolded, did not care,
The toast was cold, ’twas past eleven;
I dreamed the Captain through the air
On Cupid’s wings bore me to heaven:
Pouted and dined, dressed, looked divine,
Made an excuse, got Ma to back it;
Went to the play, what joy was mine!
Talked loud and laughed with Captain Clackit.

Wednesday came down no lark so gay,
“The girl’s quite altered,” said my mother;
Cried Dad, “I recollect the day
When, dearee, thou wert such another!”
Danced, drew a landscape, skimmed a play,
In the paper read that widow Flackit
To Gretna Green had run away,
The forward minx, with Captain Clackit.

Thursday fell sick: “poor soul she’ll die”;
Five doctors came with lengthened faces;
Each felt my pulse; “ah me!” cried I,
“Are these my promised loves and graces?”
Friday grew worse; cried Ma, in pain,
“Our day was fair, heaven do not black it;
Where’s your complaint, love?”—In my brain.”
“What shall I give you?”—“Captain Clackit.

Early next morn a nostrum came
Worth all their cordials, balms and spices;
A letter, I had been to blame;
The Captain’s truth brought on a crisis.
Sunday, for fear of more delays,
Of a few clothes I made a packet,
And Monday morn stepped in a chaise
And ran away with Captain Clackit.

Charles Dibdin (1745–1814)

William Bond

I wonder whether the Girls are mad,
And I wonder whether they mean to kill.
And I wonder if William Bond will die,
For assuredly he is very ill.

He went to Church on a May morning
Attended by Fairies, one, two and three;
But the Angels of Providence drove them away,
And he return’d home in Misery.

He went not out to the Field nor Fold,
He went not out to the Village nor Town,
But he came home in a black, black cloud,
And took to his Bed and there lay down.

And an Angel of Providence at his Feet,
And an Angel of Providence at his Head,
And in the midst a Black, Black Cloud,
And in the midst the Sick Man on his Bed.

And on his Right hand was Mary Green,
And on his Left hand was his Sister Jane,
And their tears fell thro’ the black, black Cloud
To drive away the sick man’s pain.

O William, if thou dost another Love,
Dost another Love better than poor Mary,
Go and take that other to be thy Wife,
And Mary Green shall her Servant be.

Yes, Mary, I do another Love,
Another I love far better than thee,
And Another I will have for my Wife;
Then what have I to do with thee?

For thou are Melancholy Pale,
And on thy Head is the cold Moon’s shine,
But she is ruddy and bright as day,
And the sun beams dazzle from her eyne.

Mary trembled and Mary chill’d
And Mary fell down on the right hand floor,
That William Bond and his Sister Jane
Scarce could recover Mary more.

When Mary woke and found her Laid
On the Right hand of her William dear,
On the Right hand of his loved Bed,
And saw her William Bond so near,

The Fairies that fled from William Bond
Danced around her Shining Head;
They danced over the Pillow white,
And the Angels of Providence left the Bed.

I thought love liv’d in the hot sun shine
But O, he lives in the Moony light!
I thought to find Love in the heat of day,
But sweet Love is the comforter of Night.

Seek Love in the Pity of others’ Woe,
In the gentle relief of another’s care,
In the darkness of night and the winter’s snow,
In the naked and outcast, Seek Love there!

William Blake (1757–1827)

A Poet’s Welcome to his Love-begotten Daughter

See glossary

Thou’s welcome, wean! mischanter fa’ me,
If ought of thee, or yet thy mammy,
Shall ever daunton me or awe me,
My sweet wee lady;
Or if I blush when thou shalt ca’ me
Tit-ta or Daddie.

Wee image of my bonnie Betty,
I fatherly will kiss and daut thee,
As dear and near my heart I set thee,
Wi’ as gude will,
As a’ the priests had seen me get thee
That’s out o’ hell.

What tho’ they ca’ me fornicator,
An’ tease my name in kintra clatter,
The mair they talk, I’m kent the better,
E’en let them clash;
An auld wife’s tongue’s a feckless matter
To gie ane fash.

Welcome! my bonnie sweet wee dochter—
Tho’ ye come here a wee unsought for;
And tho’ your comin’ I hae fought for,
Baith kirk and queir;
Yet by my faith, ye’re no unwrought for,
That I shall swear!

Sweet fruit o’ mony a merry dint,
My funny toil is now a’ tint;
Sin ye come to the warl asklent,
Which fools may scoff at;
In my last plack thy part’s be in’t,
The better half o’t.

An’ if thou be, what I wad hae thee,
An’ tak the counsel I shall gie thee
A lovin’ father I’ll be to thee,
If thou be spar’d;
Thro’ a’ thy childish years I’ll ee thee,
An’ think’t weel war’d.

Tho’ I should be the waur bestead,
Thou’s be as braw and bienly clad,
And thy young years as nicely bred,
Wi’ education,
As ony brat o’ wedlock’s bed,
In a’ thy station.

Gude grant that thou may ay inherit
Thy mither’s person, grace, an’ merit;
An’ thy poor, worthless daddy’s spirit,
Without his failins;
‘Twill please me mair to see and heir o’t
Than stockit mailins.

Robert Burns (1759–1796)

The Groves of Blarney

The groves of Blarney they look so charming,
Down by the purling of sweet silent streams,
Being banked with posies that spontaneous grow there,
Planted in order by the sweet rock close.
‘Tis there’s the daisy and the sweet carnation,
The blooming pink and the rose so fair,
The daffydowndilly, likewise the lily,
All flowers that scent the sweet fragrant air.

’T is Lady Jeffers that owns this station;
Like Alexander, or Queen Helen fair,
There’s no commander in all the nation,
For emulation, can with her compare.
Such walls surround her, that no nine-pounder
Could dare to plunder her place of strength;
But Oliver Cromwell he did her pommel,
And made a breach in her battlement.

There’s gravel walks there for speculation
And conversation in sweet soltude.
’Tis there the lover may hear the dove, or
The gentle plover in the afternoon;
And if a lady would be so engaging
As to walk alone in those shady bowers,
’Tis there the courtier he may transport her
Into some fort, or all under ground.

For ‘tis there’s a cave where no daylight enters,
But cats and badgers are for ever bred;
Being mossed by nature, that makes it sweeter
Than a coach-and-six or a feather bed.
’Tis there the lake is, well stored with perches,
And comely eels in the verdant mud;
Besides the leeches, and groves of beeches,
Standing in order for to guard the flood.

’Tis there’s the kitchen hangs many a flitch in
With the maids a stitching upon the stair;
The bread and briske’, the beer and whisky,
Would make you frisky if you were there.
’Tis there you’d see Peg Murphy’s daughter
A washing praties fornent the door,
With Roger Cleary, and Father Healy,
All blood relations to my Lord Donoughmore.

There’s statues gracing this noble place in—
All heathen gods and nymphs so fair;
Bold Neptune, Plutarch, and Nicodemus,
All standing naked in the open air!
So now to finish this bold narration,
Which my poor geni’ could not entwine;
But were I Homer or Nebuchadnezzar,
’Tis in every feature I would make it shine.

Richard Alfred Milliken (1767–1815)

The Maniac’s Song

Bring me a garland, bring me a wreath;
Bring me a flower from the dank stream side;
Bring me a herb smelling sweetly of death,
Wet with the drowsy tide.

Haste to the pool with the green-weed breast,
Where the dark wave crawls through the sedge;
Where the bittern of the wilderness builds her nest,
In the flags of its oozy edge;

Where no sun shines through the live-long day,
Because of the blue-wreathed mist,
Where the cockatrice creeps her foul eggs to lay,
And the speckled snake has hissed:

And bring me the flag that is moist with the wave,
And the rush where the heath-winds sigh,
And the hemlock plant, that flourishes so brave,
And the poppy, with its coal-black eye;

And weave them tightly, and weave them well,
The fever of my head to allay;—
And soon shall I faint with the death-weed smell,
And sleep these throbbings away.

And my hot, hot heart, that is fluttering so fast,
Shall shudder with a strange, cold thrill,
And the damp hand of death o’er my forehead shall be passed,
And my lips shall be stiff and still.

And crystals of ice on my bosom shall arise,
Prest out from the shivering pore;
And oft shall it struggle with pent-up sighs,
But soon it shall struggle no more.

For the poppy on my head shall her cool breath shed,
And wind through the blue, blue tide;
And the bony wand of Death shall draw my last breath,
All by the dark stream side.

Ann Taylor (1782–1866)

Recreation

We took our work, and went, you see,
To take an early cup of tea.
We did so now and then, to pay
The friendly debt, and so did they.
Not that our friendship burnt so bright
That all the world could see the light;
‘’Twas of the ordinary genus,
And little love was lost between us:
We lov’d, I think, about as true
As such near neighbours mostly do.

At first, we all were somewhat dry;
Mamma felt cold, and so did I:
Indeed, that room, sit where you will,
Has draught enough to turn a mill.
“I hope you’re warm,” says Mrs. G.
“O, quite so,” says mamma, says she;
“I’ll take my shawl off by and by.”
“This room is always warm,” says I.

At last the tea came up, and so,
With that, our tongues began to go.
Now, in that house you’re sure of knowing
The smallest scrap of news that’s going;
We find it there the wisest way
To take some care of what we say.
—Says she, “there’s dreadful doings still
In that affair about the will;
For now the folks in Brewer’s Street
Don’t speak to James’s, when they meet.
Poor Mrs. Sam sits all alone,
And frets herself to skin and bone.
For months she manag’d, she declares,
All the old gentleman’s affairs;
And always let him have his way,
And never left him night and day;
Waited and watch’d his every look,
And gave him every drop he took.
Dear Mrs. Sam, it was too bad!
He might have left her all he had.”

“Pray, ma’am,” says I, “has poor Miss A.
Been left as handsome as they say?
“My dear,” says she, “’tis no such thing,
She’s nothing but a mourning ring.
But is it not uncommon mean
To wear that rusty bombazine!”
“She had,” says I, “the very same
Three years ago, for—what’s his name?”—
“The Duke of Brunswick,—very true,
And has not bought a thread of new,
I’m positive,” said Mrs. G.—
So then we laugh’d, and drank our tea.

“So,” says mamma, “I find it’s true
What Captain P. intends to do;
To hire that house, or else to buy—“
“Close to the tan-yard, ma’am, “ says I;
“Upon my word it’s very strange,
I wish they mayn’t repent the change!”
“My dear,” says she, “’tis very well
You know, if they can stand the smell.”

“Miss F.” says I, “is said to be
A sweet young woman, is not she?”
“O, excellent! I hear,” she cried,
“O, truly so!” mamma replied.
“How old should you suppose her, pray?
She’s older than her looks they say.”
“Really,” says I, “she seems to me
No more than twenty-two or three.”
“O, then you’re wrong,” says Mrs. G.
“Their upper servant told our Jane,
She’ll not see twenty-nine again.”
“Indeed, so old! I wonder why
She does not marry then,” says I;
“So many thousands to bestow,
And such a beauty, too, you know.”
“A beauty! O, my dear Miss B,
You must be joking now,” says she;
“Her figure’s rather pretty,”—“Ah!
That’s what I say,” replied mamma.

“Miss F.” says I, “I’ve understood,
Spends all her time in doing good:
The people say her coming down
Is quite a blessing to the town.”
At that our hostess fetch’d a sigh,
And shook her head; and so, says I
“It’s very kind of her, I’m sure,
To be so generous to the poor.”
“No doubt,” says she, “’tis very true:
Perhaps there may be reasons too:—
You know some people like to pass
For patrons with the lower class.”

And here I break my story’s thread,
Just to remark, that what she said,
Although I took the other part,
Went like a cordial to my heart.

Some inuendos more had pass’d,
Till out the scandal came at last.
“Come then, I’ll tell you something more,”
Says she,—“Eliza, shut the door.—
I would not trust a creature here,
For all the world, but you, my dear.
Perhaps it’s false—I wish it may,
—But let it go no further, pray!”
“O,” says mamma, “You need not fear,
We never mention what we hear.”
And so, we draw our chairs the nearer,
And whispering, less the child should hear her,
She told a tale, at least too long
To be reported in a song;
We, panting every breath between,
With curiosity and spleen.
And how we did enjoy the sport!
And echo every faint report,
And answer every careful doubt,
And turn her motives inside out,
And holes in all her virtues pick,
Till we were sated, almost sick.
—Thus having brought it to a close,
In great good-humour, we arose.
Indeed, ’twas more than time to go,
Our boy had been an hour below.
So, warmly pressing Mrs. G.
To fix a day to come to tea,
We muffled up in cloak and plaid,
And trotted home behind the lad.

Jane Taylor (1783–1824)

The Tinkler’s Waddin’

In June, when broom in bloom was seen,
And bracken waved fu’ fresh and green,
And warm the sun, wi’ silver sheen,
The hills and glens did gladden, O;
Ae day, upon the Border bent,
The tinklers pitch’d their gypsy tent,
And auld and young, wi’ ae consent,
Resolved to haud a waddin’, O.

The bridegroom was wild Norman Scott,
What thrice had broke the nuptial knot,
And ance was sentenced to be shot
For breach o’ martial orders, O.
His gleesome joe was Madge MaKell,
A spaewife, match for Nick himsel’,
Wi’ glamour, cantrip, charm, and spell,
She frichted baith the Borders.

Nae priest was there, wi’ solemn face,
Nae clerk to claim o’ crowns a brace;
The piper and fiddler played the grace
To set their gabs a-steerin’, O.
Mang beef and mutton, pork and veal,
Mang paunches, plucks, and fresh cow-heel,
Fat haggises, and cauler jeel,
They clawed awa’ careerin’, O.

Fresh salmon, newly taen in Tweed,
Saut ling and cod o’ Shetland breed,
They worried, till kytes were like to screed,
Mang flagons and flasks o’ gravy, O.
There was raisin-kail and sweet-milk saps,
And ewe-milk cheese in whangs and flaps,
And they rookit, to gust their gabs and craps,
Richt mony a cadger’s cavie, O.

The drink flew found in wild galore,
And soon upraised a hideous roar
Blithe Comus ne’er a queerer core
Saw seated round his table, O.
They drank, they danced, they swore, they sang,
They quarrel’d and greed the hale day lang,
And the wranglin’ that rang amang the thrang
Wad match’d the tongues o’ Babel, O.

The drink gaed dune before their drooth,
That vex’d baith mony a maw and mooth,
It damp’d the fire o’ age and youth
And every breast did sadden, O:
Till three stout loons flew ower the fell,
At risk o’ life, their drouth to quell,
And robb’d a neebourin’ smuggler’s stell,
To carry on the waddin’, O.

Wi thunderin’ shouts they hail’d them back
To broach the barrels they werena slack,
While the fiddler’s plane-tree leg they brak’
For playin’ “Farewell to Whisky, O”.
Delirium seized the roarous thrang,
The bagpipes in the fire they flang,
And sowtherin’ airns on riggin’s rang,
The drink play’d siccan a plisky, O.

The sun fell laich owre Solway banks,
While on they plied their roughsome pranks,
And the stalwart shadows o’ their shanks,
Wide ower the muir were spreadin’, O.
Till, heads and thraws, amang the whins,
They fell wi’ broken brows and shins,
And sair craist banes filled mony skins,
To close the tinkler’s waddin’, O.

William Watt (1792–1859)

La Jeune Chatelaine

“Je vous défends, châtelaine,
De courir seule au grand bois.”
M’y voici, tout hors de haleine,
Et pour le seconde fois.
J’aurais manqué de courage
Dans ce long sentier perdu;
Mais que j’en aime l’ombrage!
Mon seigneur l’a défendu.

“Je vous défends, belle mie,
Ce rondeau vif et moqueur.”
Je n’étais pas endormie
Que je le savais par coeur.
Depuis ce jour je le chante,
Pas un refrain n’est perdu;
Dieu! que ce rondeau m’enchante!
Mon seigneur l’a défendu.

“Je vous défend sur mon page
De jamais lever les yeux.”
Et voilà que son image
Me suit, m’obsède en tous lieux.
Je l’entends qui, par mégarde,
Au bois s’est aussi perdu:
D’où vient que je le regarde/
Mon seigneur l’a defendu.

Mon seigneur défende encore
Au pauvre enfant de parler;
Et sa voix douce et sonore
Ne dit plus rien sans trembler.
Qu’il doit souffre de se taire!
Pour causer quel temps perdu!
Mais, mon page, comment faire;
Mon seigneur l’a défendu.

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)

The Young Chatelaine/ La Jeune Châtelaine

“I forbid you, chatelaine,
To wander alone in the big wood.”
There I was, all out of breath,
For the second time.
I’d have been scared
On that long, untrodden track,
But how I love its leafy shade!
My noble lord has forbidden it.

“I forbid you, beautiful girl,
To sing that mocking roundelay.”
By the time I went to sleep
I had got it all by heart.
Since then I’ve gone on singing it,
Not missing a single bar.
Heavens, how it enraptures me.
My noble lord has forbidden it.

“I forbid you to raise your eyes
And let them rest upon my page.”
Now his image everywhere
Follows me, obsesses me.
I understand him, for, by chance,
He too got lost in the wood.
Why do I keep on glancing at him?
My noble lord has forbidden it.

My noble lord has forbidden
The poor kid to talk at all;
And his sweet clear voice
Can’t say anything without trembling;
How he must suffer from his silence.
So much time for chatting lost!
But, my page, what’s to be done?
My noble lord has forbidden it.

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)
©Tr. JF

Les Séparés/ Apart

N'écris pas. Je suis triste, et je voudrais m'éteindre.
Les beaux étés sans toi, c'est la nuit sans flambeau.
J'ai refermé mes bras qui ne peuvent t'atteindre,
Et frapper à mon coeur, c'est frapper au tombeau.
N'écris pas!

N'écris pas. N'apprenons qu'à mourir à nous-mêmes.
Ne demande qu'à Dieu . . . qu'à toi, si je t'aimais!
Au fond de ton absence écouter que tu m'aimes,
C'est entendre le ciel sans y monter jamais.
N'écris pas!

N'écris pas. Je te crains; j'ai peur de ma mémoire;
Elle a gardé ta voix qui m'appelle souvent.
Ne montre pas l'eau vive à qui ne peut la boire.
Une chère écriture est un portrait vivant.
N'écris pas!

N'écris pas ces doux mots que je n'ose plus lire:
Il semble que ta voix les répand sur mon coeur;
Que je les vois brûler à travers ton sourire;
Il semble qu'un baiser les empreint sur mon coeur.
N'écris pas!

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)

Apart / Les Séparés

Do not write. I am sad, and want my light put out.
Summers in your absence are as dark as a room.
I have closed my arms again. They must do without.
To knock at my heart is like knocking at a tomb.
Do not write!

Do not write. Let us learn to die, as best we may.
Did I love you? Ask God. Ask yourself. Do you know?
To hear that you love me, when you are far away,
Is like hearing from heaven and never to go.
Do not write!

Do not write. I fear you. I fear to remember,
For memory holds the voice I have often heard.
To the one who cannot drink, do not show water,
The beloved one's picture in the handwritten word.
Do not write!

Do not write those gentle words that I dare not see,
It seems that your voice is spreading them on my heart,
Across your smile, on fire, they appear to me,
It seems that a kiss is printing them on my heart.
Do not write!

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)
©Tr. Louis Simpson

Ma chambre

Ma demeure est haute,
Donnant sur les cieux ;
La lune en est l'hôte,
Pâle et sérieux :
En bas que l'on sonne,
Qu'importe aujourd'hui
Ce n'est plus personne,
Quand ce n'est plus lui !

Aux autres cachée,
Je brode mes fleurs ;
Sans être fâchée,
Mon âme est en pleurs ;
Le ciel bleu sans voiles,
Je le vois d'ici ;
Je vois les étoiles
Mais l'orage aussi !

Vis-à-vis la mienne
Une chaise attend :
Elle fut la sienne,
La nôtre un instant ;
D'un ruban signée,
Cette chaise est là,
Toute résignée,
Comme me voilà !

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)

My Room

My lodging is high up,
With a view of the heavens,
The moon is the landlord,
Pale and serious;
Below, when the doorbell sounds,
What does it matter?
There’s nobody there
When it isn’t he.

Hidden from others,
I embroider my flowers;
Without seeming vexed,
My soul is in tears;
From here I look at
The clear blue sky;
I can see the stars,
But also storms.

Opposite mine,
A chair waits;
It was his;
For a short while, ours;
Marked with a ribbon,
The chair sits there,
Resigned,
Like myself.

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)
©Tr. JF

Cantique des Mères

Reine pieuse aux flancs de mère,
Ecoutez la supplique amère
Des veuves aux rares deniers
Dont les fils sont vos prisonniers.
Si vous voulez que Dieu vous aime
Et pardonne au geôlier lui-même,
Priez d' un salutaire effroi
Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

On dit que l' on a vu des larmes
Dans vos regards doux et sans armes ;
Que Dieu fasse tomber ces pleurs
Sur un front gros de nos malheurs.
Soulagez la terre en démence,
Faites-y couler la clémence ;
Et priez d' un céleste effroi
Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

Car ce sont vos enfants, madame,
Adoptés au fond de votre âme,
Quand ils se sont, libres encor,
Rangés sous votre rameau d' or ;
Rappelez aux royales haines
Ce qu' ils font un jour de leurs chaînes,
Et priez d' un prudent effroi
Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

Ne sentez-vous pas vos entrailles
Frémir des fraîches funérailles
Dont nos pavés portent le deuil ?
Il est déjà grand le cercueil !
Personne n' a tué vos filles ;
Rendez-nous d' entières familles !
Priez d' un maternel effroi
Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

Comme Esther s' est agenouillée
Et saintement humiliée
Entre le peuple et le bourreau,

Rappelez le glaive au fourreau.
Vos soldats vont la tête basse,
Le sang est lourd, la haine lasse :
Priez d' un courageux effroi
Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

Madame ! Les geôles sont pleines,
L’air y manque pour tant d' haleines,
Nos enfants n' en sortent que morts !
Où commence donc le remords ?
S' il est plus beau que l' innocence,
Qu' il soit en aide à la puissance,
Et priez d' un ardent effroi

Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

C'est la faim, croyez-en nos larmes,
Qui fiévreuse aiguisa leurs armes.
Vous ne comprenez pas la faim :
Elle tue, on s' insurge enfin !
O vous ! Dont le lait coule encore,
Notre sein tari vous implore :
Priez d' un charitable effroi
Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

Voyez comme la providence
Confond l' oppressive imprudence,
Comme elle ouvre avec ses flambeaux,
Les bastilles et les tombeaux !
La liberté, c' est son haleine
Qui d' un rocher fait une plaine :

Priez d' un prophétique effroi
Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

Quand nos cris rallument la guerre,
Coeur sans pitié n' en trouve guère ;
L' homme qui n' a rien pardonné
Se voit par l' homme abandonné ;
De noms sanglants, dans l' autre vie,
Sa terreur s' en va poursuivie :
Priez d' un innocent effroi
Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

Reine ! Qui dites vos prières,
Femme ! Dont les chastes paupières
Savent lire au livre de Dieu ;
Par les maux qu' il lit en ce lieu,
Par la croix qui saigne et pardonne,
Par le haut pouvoir qu' il vous donne,
Reine ! Priez d' un humble effroi
Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

Avantla couronne qui change,
Dieu grava sur votre front d’ange,
Comme un imperissable don:
“Amour! Amour! pardon! Pardon!”
Colombe envoyee dans leur courage
Et priez de tout notre effroi.
Pour tous les prisonieres du roi !

Redoublez vos divins exemples,
Madame ! Le plus beau des temples,
C’ est le coeur du peuple ; entrez-y !
Le roi des rois l' a bien choisi.
Vous ! Qu' on aimait comme sa mère,
Pesez notre supplique amère,
Et priez d' un sublime effroi.
Pour tous les prisonniers du roi !

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)

Canticle of the Mothers/ Cantique des Mères

Pious queen with a mother’s breasts,
Hear the bitter supplication,
Of widows, down to their last mites,
Whose sons are now your prisoners.
If you want the Lord to love you
And pardon even the gaoler himself,
Pray with a humane concern
For all the captives of the king.

It’s said that tears have been noticed,
In your soft and pacific eyes.
May the Lord let those tears be shed
On our manifest misfortunes.
Bring calm to the demented land,
Start the springs of mercy flowing,
And pray with a devout concern
For all the captives of the king.

For these, Madam, are your children,
Adopted from the depths of your soul
When, while they were still free
They gathered under your golden bough;
Recall in the face of royal hatreds
What they did once with their chains.
And pray with a prudent concern
For all the captives of the king.

Don’t you feel your bowels
Tremble as the daily funerals
Bear their griefs along our streets?
It’s so large now, that grave!
Nobody’s killed your daughters;
So let us have our families back!
Pray with a mother’s concern
For all the captives of the king.

Like Queen Esther kneeling down,
Saintly in her humiliation
Between the hangman and her people,
Return the sword to its sheath.
Your soldiers walk with downcast eyes,
Blood is heavy, hatred tiring:
Pray with courageous concern
For all the captives of the king.

Madame! the gaols are packed.
There isn’t air there for so many,
Our children only come out dead !
Where, then, will remorse occur?
If it’s lovelier than innocence,
Let it improve the powerful.
Pray with fervent concern
For all the captives of the king.

It was hunger— trust our tears!—,
Which feverishly honed the weapons.
You simply don’t understand hunger,
It kills; finally one revolts.
O you, whose milk is still flowing,
Our dried-up breasts implore you,
Pray with charitable concern
For all the captives of the king.

Observe how Providence
Deals with heedless oppression;
How she opens with her torches
The fortresses and the tombs!
Liberty is the air she breathes,
Who creates a plain out of a rock,
Pray with prophetic concern
For all the prisoners of the king.

If our cries rekindle war,
A hard heart will receive no pity;
He who’s never forgiven anything
Will find himself cast out by man;
With bloody names. in the other life,
His terror is going to be pursued.
Queen! pray with innocent concern
For all the prisoners of the king.

O Queen, who say your prayers,
O Woman, whose downturned eyes
Know how to read the book of God;
By the ills that it displays,
By the cross that bleeds and forgives,
By the lofty power given you,
Queen! pray with humble concern
For all the captives of the king.

Before you got your temporal crown ,
God engraved on your angel’s forehead,
As an imperishable gift,
“Love! Love! Mercy! Mercy!”
Like a dove sent into the storm,
Breathe those inspiring words;
And pray with all our concern
For all the captives of the king.

Redouble your divine examples,
Madame! The loveliest of temples
Is the heart of the people; go there!
The king of kings chose it well.
O you! beloved like our own mother,
Ponder our bitter supplication,
And pray with an exalted concern
For all the captives of the king.

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)
©Tr. JF

Un arc de triomphe

Tout ce qu'ont dit les hirondelles
Sur ce colossal bâtiment,
C'est que c'était à cause d'elles
Qu'on élevait un monument.

Leur nid s'y pose si tranquille,
Si près des grands chemins du jour,
Qu'elles ont pris ce champ d'asile
Pour causer d'affaire, ou d'amour.

En hâte, à la géante porte,
Parmi tous ces morts triomphants,
Sans façon l'hirondelle apporte
Un grain de chanvre à ses enfants.

Dans le casque de la Victoire
L'une, heureuse, a couvé ses oeufs,
Qui, tout ignorants de l'histoire,
Eclosent fiers comme chez eux.

Voulez-vous lire au fond des gloires,
Dont le marbre est tout recouvert ?
Mille doux cris à têtes noires
Sortent du grand livre entr'ouvert.

La plus mince qui rentre en France
Dit aux oiseaux de l'étranger
"Venez voir notre nid immense.
Nous avons de quoi vous loger."

Car dans leurs plaines de nuages
Les canons ne s'entendent pas
Plus que si les hommes bien sages
Riaient et s'entr'aimaient en bas.

La guerre est un cri de cigale
Pour l'oiseau qui monte chez Dieu ;
Et le héros que rien n'égale
N'est vu qu'à peine en si haut lieu.

Voilà pourquoi les hirondelles,
A l'aise dans ce bâtiment,
Disent que c'est à cause d'elles
Que Dieu fit faire un monument.

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)

A Triumphal Arch

All that the swallows have said
About this colossal edifice
Is that it was because of them
That a monument was erected.

Their nests rest there so quietly,
So near the busy highways,
That they’re using this sanctuary
For chatting about business, or love.

In haste, on the huge gate
Among all the triumphant dead,
Without ceremony, a swallow carries
A grain of hemp to her infants.

In the helmet of Victory,
Another sits happily on her eggs,
Which, knowing nothing of history,
Proudly hatch as if at home.

Do you want to read about the exploits
Covering the marble below?
The cheeps of a thousand little heads
Come from the great half-open book

The smallest bird who’s returning to France
Says to the birds from abroad,
“Come and see our great big nest.
We’ll be able to put you up.”

For high up in the clouds,
The canons are no more audible
Than if wise men laughed
And got on well together below.

The war is like a cicada’s cry
For the bird who soars towards God;
And the most exalted hero
Is hard to see from so high up.

That’s why the swallows,
At ease on the building,
Say it was because of them
That God had a monument made.

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)
©Tr. JF

My Possession

The autumn day rests in its fullness now
Grapes gleam pure and the orchard is red
With fruit, though to the earth a few
Fair blossoms fell as a thanksgiving.

And out in the country, where I walk a peaceful
Path, crops are ripe to the satisfaction
Of men who won them; blithe toil,
Plenteous too, this wealth is bringing.

From heaven the light looks mildly down and through
Their trees upon the busy people, sharing
Their joy, for the fruits ripened
Not by handiwork of people only.

And do you shine also for me, O golden light?
Breeze, do you blow my way again, blessing
As once you did, a joy of mine,
And flutter my heart as for the fortunate?

Fortune was mine once, yet that gentle life
Was fleeting like the rose, ah! And the sweet
Blossoming stars that remain to me
Tell me of this, and all too often.

Fortune is his who, loving his gentle wife,
Lives in his home at peace and in an honored land;
That much the lovelier, for his safe being
On sure terrain, his heaven shines.

For, like a plant, if it has sunk no root
In ground of its own, the mortal soul must wither,
Man being poor and daylight all
That moves with him on the holy earth.

Too potent, ah! You haul me, heavenly altitudes,
Upward, battering gales on a calm day—
And I feel you chop and change, consuming
Me in my depths, you powers divine!

But let me walk today the quiet familiar path
To the orchard where leaves that are dying crown
Every tree with gold; sweet memories,
Weave for my brow a garland also.

And that, like others, I too may find a place
To abide and save my mortal heart in, lest
My soul, unhoused, clean gone
Above what’s living, pine away,

Be you, O song, my welcoming refuge, bringer
Of my felicity, the garden kept
With careful love, where underneath
Ageless blossoms I shall walk,

Living in sure simplicity, and hear the surge
Of potent changeful time that roars far off
With all its waves, and the calmer sun
Helps everything I do to prosper.

O heavenly powers who bless, benign, above
All mortal things, each mortal’s own possession,
Bless also mine, and let not fate
Bring too soon to the dream an ending.

(Autumn 1799)

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843)
Tr. Christopher Middleton

Hälfte des Lebens

Mit gelben Birnen hänget
Und voll mit wilden Rosen
Das Land in den See,
Ihr holden Schwäne,
Und trunken von Küssen
Tunkt ihr das Haupt
Ins heilignüchterne Wasser.

Weh mir, wo nehm ich, wenn
Es Winter ist, die Blumen, and wo
Den Sonnenschein,
Und Schatten der Erde?
Die Mauern stehn
Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde
Kirren die Fahnen.

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843)

Half of Life

Brimful with yellow pears,
and wild roses, the land hangs down
into the lake,

O you lovely swans,
and drunk with kisses,
you dip your heads
in the holy tranquil water.

But I, alas,
where, oh where, do I find,
when it is winter, the flowers,
and the sunlight and shadows,
of Earth?
Walls stand there,
speechless and cold;
in the wind,
weathervanes clatter.

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843)
Tr. JF

A Letter of Advice

From Miss Medora Trevillian, at Padua,
to Miss Araminta Vavasour, in London

You tell me you’re promised a lover,
My own Araminta, next week;
Why cannot my fancy discover
The hue of his coat, and his cheek?
Alas! if he look like another,
A vicar, a banker, a beau,
Be deaf to your father and mother,
My own Amarinta, say “No~”

Miss Lane, at her Temple of Fashion,
Taught us both how to sing and to speak,
And we loved one another with passion
Before we had been there a week;
You gave me a ring for a token,
I wear it wherever I go;
I gave you a chain—is it broken?
My own Araminta, say “No!”

Oh! think of our favorite cottage,
And think of our dear Lalla Rookh;
How we shared with the milkmaids their pottage,
And drank of the stream from the brook;
How fondly our loving lips faltered—
“What farther can grandeur bestow?”
My heart is the same—is yours altered?
My own Araminta, say “No!”

Remember the thrilling romances
We read on the bank in the glen;
Remember the suitors our fancies
Would picture for both of us then;
They wore the red cross on their shoulders,
They had vanquished and pardoned their foe—
Sweet friend, are you wiser or colder?
My own Araminta, say “No!”

You know, when Lord Rigmarole’s carriage
Drove off with your cousin Justine,
You wept, dearest girl, at the marriage,
And whispered “How base she has been!”
You said you were sure it would kill you
If ever your husband looked so;
And you will not apostatize—will you?
My own Amarinta, say “No!”

When I heard I was going abroad, Love,
I thought I was going to die;
We walked arm-in-arm to the road, Love,
We looked arm-in-arm to the sky;
And I said, “When a foreign postillion
Has hurried me off to the Po,
Forget not Medora Trevilian;—
My own Amarinta, “say “No!”

We parted! but sympathy’s fetters
Reach far over valley and hill;
I muse o’er your exquisite letters,
And feel that your heart is mine still.
And he who would share it with me, Love,
The richest of treasures below,
If he’s not what Orlando should be, Love,
My own Amarinta, say “No!”

If he wears a top boot in his wooing,
If he comes to you riding a cob,
If he talks of his baking or brewing,
If he puts up his feet on the hob,
If he ever drinks port after dinner,
If his brow or his breeding is low,
If he calls himself “Thompson” or “Skinner,”
My own Amarinta, say “No!”

If he studies the news in the papers,
While you are preparing the tea,
If he talks of the damps or the vapors,
While moonlight lies soft on the sea,
If he’s sleepy while you are capricious,
If he has not a musical “Oh!”
If he does not call Werther delicious,
My own Amarinta, say “No!”

If he ever sets foot in the city,
Among the stockbrokers and Jews,
If he has not a heart full of pity,
If he don’t stand six feet in his shoes,
If his lips are not redder than roses,
If his hands are not whiter than snow,
If he has not the model of noses,
My own Amarinta, say “No!”

If he speaks of a tax or a duty,
If he does not look grand on his knees,
If he’s blind to a landscape of beauty,
Hills, valleys, rocks, waters, and trees,
If he dotes not on desolate towers,
If he likes not to hear the blast blow,
If he knows not the language of flowers,
My own Amarinta, say “No!”

He must walk like a god of old story,
Come down from the home of his rest;
He must smile like the sun in his glory,
On the buds he loves ever the best;
And oh, from its ivory portal,
Like music his soft speech must flow!—
If he speak, smile, or walk like a mortal,
My own Amarinta, say “No!”

Don’t listen to tales of his bounty,
Don’t hear what they say of his birth,
Don’t look at his seat in the county,
Don’t calculate what he is worth;
But give him a theme to write verse on,
And see if he turns out his toe;—
If he’s only an excellent person,
My own Amarinta, say “No!”

Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)

Arrivals at a Watering Place

SCENE—A Conversation at Lady Crampton’s—Whist and weariness, Caricatures and Chinese Puzzle—Young Ladies making tea, and Young Gentlemen making the agreeable—The Stable-Boy handing rout-cakes—Music expressive of there being nothing to do.

I play a spade:—Such strange new faces
Are flocking in from near and far:
Such frights—Miss Dobbs holds all the aces—
One can’t imagine who they are!
The lodgings at enormous prices,
New Donkeys, and another fly;
And Madame Bonbon out of ices,
Although we’re scarcely in July:
We’re quite as sociable as any,
But our old horse can scarcely crawl;
And really where there are so many,
We can’t tell where we ought to call.

Pray who has seen the odd old fellow
Who took the Doctor’s house last week?—
A pretty chariot,—livery yellow,
Almost as yellow as his cheek:
A widower, sixty-five, and surly,
And stiller than a poplar tree;
Drinks rum and water, gets up early
To dip his carcass in the sea:
He’s always in a monstrous hurry,
And always talking of Bengal;
They say his cook makes noble curry,—
I think, Louisa, we should call.

And so Miss Jones, the mantua-maker,
Has let her cottage on the hill?—
The drollest man, a sugar-baker,—
Last year imported from the till:
Prates of his ’orses and his ’oney,
Is quite in love with fields and farms;
A horrid Vandal,—but his money
Will buy a glorious coat of arms;
Old Clyster makes him take the waters;
Some say he means to give a ball;
And after all, with thirteen daughters,
I think, Sir Thomas, you might call.

That poor young man!—I’m sure and certain
Despair is making up his shroud;
He walks all night beneath the curtain
Of the dim sky and murky cloud:
Draws landscapes,—throws such mournful glances!—
Writes verses,—has such splendid eyes;
An ugly name,—but Laura fancies
He’s some great person in disguise!—
And since his dress is all the fashion,
And since he’s very dark and tall,
I think that, out of pure compassion,
I’ll get Papa to go and call.

So Lord St Ives is occupying
The whole of Mr Ford’s Hotel;
Last Saturday his man was trying
A little nag I want to sell.
He brought a lady in the carriage;
Blue eyes,—eighteen, or thereabouts;—
Of course, you know, we hope it’s marriage!
But yet the femme de chambre doubts.
She look’d so pensive when we met her;
Poor thing! And such a charming shawl!—
Well! Till we understand it better,
It’s quite impossible to call!

Old Mr. Fund, the London banker,
Arrived to-day at Premium Court;
I would not, for the world, cast anchor
In such a horrid dangerous port;
Such dust and rubbish, lath and plaster,—
(Contractors play the meanest tricks)—
The roof’s as crazy as its master,
And he was born in fifty=six;
Stairs creaking—cracks in every landing—
The colonnade is sure to fall,—
We shan’t find post or pillar standing
Unless we make great hast to call.

Who was that sweetest of sweet creature,
Last Sunday, in the Rector’s seat?
The finest shape,—the loveliest features,—
I never saw such tiny feet.
My brother,—(this is quite between us)
Poor Arthur,—‘’twas a sad affair!
Love at first sight,—she’s quite a Venus,—
But then she’s poorer far than fair:
And so my father and my mother
Agreed it would not do at all;
And so,—I’m sorry for my brother!—
It’s settled that we’re not to call.

And there’s an Author, full of knowledge;
And there’s a Captain on half-pay;
And there’s a Baronet from college,
Who keeps a boy, and rides a bay;
And sweet Sir Marcus from the Shannon,
Fine specimen of brogue and bone;
And Doctor Calipee, the canon,
Who weighs, I fancy, twenty stone:
A maiden Lady is adorning
The faded front of Lily Hall—
Upon my word, the first fine morning,
We’ll make a round, my dear, and call.

Alas! disturb not, maid and matron,
The swallow in my humble thatch;
Your son may find a better patron,
Your niece may meet a richer match:
I can’t afford to give a dinner,
I never was on Almack’s list;
And since I seldom ride a winner,
I never like to play at whist;
Unknown to me the stocks are falling;
Unwatched by me the glass may fall;
Let all the world pursue its calling—
I’m not at home if people call.

Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)

The Belle of the Ball-Room

Years, years ago,—ere yet my dreams
Had been of being wise or witty;—
Ere I had done with writing themes,
Or yawned o’er this infernal Chitty;
Years, years ago,—while all my joy
Was in my fowling-piece and filly,—
In short, while I was yet a boy,
I fell in love with Laura Lily.

I saw here at the Country-Ball:
There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle
Gave signal sweet in that old hall,
Of hands across and down the middle,
Hers was the subtlest spell by far
Of all that set young hearts romancing;
She was our queen, our rose, our star;
And then she danced,—Oh heaven, her dancing!

Dark was her hair; her hand was white;
Her voice was exquisitely tender;
Her eyes were full of liquid light;
I never saw a waist so slender;
Her every look, her every smile,
Shot right and left a score of arrows;
I thought ’twas Venus from her isle,
And wondered where she’d left her sparrows.

She talked—of politics, or prayers;
Of Southey’s prose, or Wordsworth’s sonnets;
Of danglers, or of dancing bears,
Of battles, or the last new bonnets:
By candlelight, at twelve o’clock,
To me it mattered not a tittle;
If those bright lips had quoted Locke,
I might have thought they murmured Little.

Through sunny May, through sultry June,
I loved her with a love eternal;
I spoke her praises to the moon,
I wrote them to the Sunday Journal:
My mother laughed;—I soon found out
That ancient ladies have no feeling;
My father frowned;— but how should gout
See any happiness in kneeling.

She was the daughter of a Dean,
Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;
She had one brother, just thirteen,
Whose colour was extremely hectic:
Her grandmother for many a year
Had fed the parish with her bounty;
Her second cousin was a peer,
And Lord Lieutenant of the county.

But titles, and the three per cents,
And mortgages, and grave relations,
And India bonds, and tithes, and rents,
Oh, what are they to love’s sensations!
Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks,
Such wealth, such honours, Cupid chuses;
He cares as little for the Stocks,
As Baron Rothschild for the Muses.

She sketched,—the vale, the wood, the beach
Grew lovelier from her pencil’s shading:
She botanized—I envied each
Young blossom in her boudoir fading;
She warbled Handel; it was grand;
She made the Catalani jealous;
She touched the organ;—I could stand
For hours and hours to blow the bellows.

She kept an Album too at home,
Well filled with all an Album’s glories;
Paintings of butterflies and Rome,
Patterns for trimmings, Persian stories;
Soft songs to Julia’s cockatoo,
Fierce odes to Famine and to Slaughter;
And autographs of Prince Leboo,
And recipes for elder-water.

And she was flattered, worshipped, bored;
Her steps were watched, her dress was noted;
Her poodle dog was quite adored,
Her sayings were extremely quoted.
She laughed, and every heart was glad,
As if the taxes were abolished;
She frowned, and every look was sad,
As if the Opera were demolished.

She smiled on many just for fun,—
I knew that there was nothing in it;
I was the first,—the only one,
Her heart had thought of for a minute.
I knew it, for she told me so,
In phrase which was divinely moulded;
She wrote a charming hand,—and oh!
How sweetly all her notes were folded!

Our love was like most other loves,—
A little glow, a little shiver,
A rose-bud, and a pair of gloves,
And “Fly not yet” upon the river;
Some jealousy of some one’s heir,
Some hopes of dying broken-hearted;
A miniature, a lock of hair,
The usual vows, and then we parted.

We parted—months and years rolled by;
We met again four summers after;
Our parting was all sob and sigh;
Our meeting was all mirth and laughter:
For in my heart’s most secret cell
There had been many other lodgers;
And she was not the Ball-Room’s Belle,
But only Mrs Something Rogers.

Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)

Good-Night to the Season

Good-night to the Season! ‘tis over!
Gay dwellings no longer are gay;
The courtier, the gambler, the lover,
Are scatter’d like swallows away;
There’s nobody left to invite one,
Except my good uncle and spouse;
My mistress is bathing at Brighton,
My patron is sailing at Cowes;
For want of a better employment,
Till Ponto and Don can get out,
I’ll cultivate rural enjoyment,
And angle immensely for trout.

Good-night to the Season!—the lobbies,
Their changes and rumours of change,
Which startled the rustic Sir Bobbies,
And made all the Bishops look strange;
The breaches, and battles, and blunders
Perform’d by the Commons and Peers;
The Marquis’s eloquent thunders,
The Baronet’s eloquent ears;
Denouncings of Papists and treasons
Of foreign dominion and oats;
Misrepresentations of reasons,
And misunderstandings of notes.

Good-night to the Season!—the buildings
Enough to make Inigo sick;
The paintings, and plasterings, and gildings
Of stucco, and marble, and brick;
The orders deliciously blended,
From love of effect into one;
The club-houses only intended,
The palaces only begun;
The hell where the fiend, in his glory,
Sits staring at putty and stones,
And scrambles from story to story
At midnight to rattle his bones.

Good-night to the Season!—the dances,
The fillings of hot little rooms,
The glancings of rapturous glances,
The fancyings of fancy costumes;
The pleasures which Fashion makes duties,
The praisings of fiddles and flutes,
The luxury of looking at beauties,
The tedium of talking to mutes;
The female diplomatists, planners
Of matches for Laura and Jane,
The ice of her Ladyship’s manners,
The ice of his Lordship’s champagne.

Good-night to the Season!—the rages
Led off by the chiefs of the throng,
The Lady Matilda’s new pages,
The Lady Eliza’s new song;
Miss Fennel’s macaw, which at Boodle’s
Is held to have something to say;
Miss Splenetic’s musical poodles,
Which bark “Batti Batti” all day;
The pony Sir Araby sported
As hot and as black as a coal,
And the Lion his mother imported,
In bearskin and grease, from the Pole.

Good-night to the Season!—the Toso,
So very majestic and tall;
Miss Ayton, whose singing was so-so,
And Pasta, divinest of all;
The labour in vain of the Ballet,
So sadly deficient in stars;
The foreigners thronging the Alley,
Exhaling the breath of cigars;
The “loge” where some heiress, how killing,
Environ’d with exquisites sits,
The lovely one out of her drilling,
The silly one out of her wits.

Good-night to the Season!—the splendour
That beam’d in the Spanish Bazaar;
Where I purchased—my heart was so tender
A card-case,—a pasteboard guitar,—
A bottle of perfume,—a girdle,—
A lithograph’d Riego full-grown,
Whom bigotry drew on a hurdle
That artists might draw him on stone,—
A small panorama of Seville,—
A trap for demolishing flies,—
A caricature of the Devil,—
And a look from Miss Sheridan’s eyes.

Good-night to the Season!—the flowers
Of the grand horticultural fête,
When boudoirs were quitted for bowers,
And the fashion was not to be late;
When all who had money and leisure
Grew rural o’er ices and wines,
All pleasantly toiling for pleasure,
All hungrily pining for pines,
And making of beautiful speeches,
And marring of beautiful shows,
And feeding on delicate peaches,
And treading on delicate toes.

Good-night to the Season!—another
Will come with its trifles and toys,
And hurry away, like its brother,
In sunshine, and colour, and noise.
Will it come like a rose or a briar?
Will it come with a blessing or curse?
Will its bonnets be lower or higher?
Will its morals be better or worse?
Will it find me grown thinner or fatter,
Or fonder of wrong or of right,
Or married,—or buried?—no matter,
Good-night to the Season, Good-night.

Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)

The Last Quadrille

Not yet, not yet—it’s hardly four;
Not yet—we’ll send the chair away;
Mirth still has many smiles in store;
And love has fifty things to say;
Long leagues the weary Sun must drive
E’er pant his hot steeds o’er the hill;
The merry stars will dance till five;—
One more Quadrille—one more Quadrille!

‘Tis only thus, ‘tis only here,
That maids and minstrels may forget
The myriad ills they feel or fear,
Ennui, taxation, cholera, debt—
With daylight busy cares and schemes
Will come again to chafe or chill
This is the fairyland of dreams—
One more Quadrille—one more Quadrille!

What tricks the French in Paris play—
And what the Austrians are about—
And whether that tall knave Lord Grey
Is staying in or going out—
And what the House of Lords will do,
At last with that Eternal Bill,
I do not care a rush—do you?
One more Quadrille, one more Quadrille!

My book don’t sell, my play don’t draw,
My garden gives me only weeds,
And Mr. Quirk has found a flaw—
Deuce take him—in my title deeds;
My Aunt has scratched her nephew’s name
From that sweet corner in her will;
My dog is dead, my horse is lame—
One more Quadrille, one more Quadrille!

Not yet, not yet—it is not late;
Don’t whisper so to sister Jane;
Your brother, I am sure, will wait,
Papa will go to cards again.
Not yet, not yet; your eyes are bright,
Your step is like a woodnymph’s still;
Oh no, you can’t be tired tonight—
One more Quadrille, one more Quadrille!

Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)

Similes for Two Political Characters of 1819

I

As from an ancestral oak
Two empty ravens sound their clarion,
Yell by yell, and croak by croak,
When they scent the noonday smoke
Of fresh human carrion:—

II

As two gibbering night-birds flit
From their bowers of deadly yew
Through the night to frighten it,
When the moon is in a fit,
And the stars are none, or few:—

III

As a shark and dog-fish wait
Under an Atlantic isle
For the negro-ship, whose freight
Is the theme of their debate,
Wrinkling their red gills the while—

IV

Are ye, two vultures sick for battle,
Two scorpions under one wet stone.
Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle,
Two crows perched on the murrained cattle,
Two vipers tangled into one.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

Decay: a Ballad

O poesy is on the wane,
For fancy’s visions all unfitting;
I hardly know her face again,
Nature herself seems on the flitting.
The fields grow old and common things—
The grass, the sky, the winds a-blowing
And spots where still a beauty clings—
Are sighing “Going! All a-going!”
O poesy is on the wane,
I hardly know her face again.

The bank with brambles overspread
And little molehills round about it
Was more to me than laurel shades
With paths and gravel finely clouted,
And streaking here and streaking there
Through shaven grass and many a border
With rutty lanes had no compare
And heaths were in a richer order.
But poesy is on the wane,
I hardly know her face again.

I sat with love by pasture streams—
Ay, beauty’s self was sitting by—
Till fields did more than Edens seem
Nor could I tell the reason why
I often drank when not a-dry
To pledge her health in draughts divine;
Smiles made it nectar from the sky
Love turned e’en water into wine
O poesy is on the wane,
I cannot find her face again.

The sun those mornings used to find
When clouds were other-country mountains
And heaven looked upon the mind
With groves and rocks and mottled fountains.
Those heavens are gone, the mountains grey
Turned mist, the sun a homeless ranger
Pursuing on a naked way
Unnoticed like a very stranger.
O poesy is on the want
Nor love nor joy is mine again.

Love’s sun went down without a frown;
For very joy it used to grieve us.
I often think that west is gone;
Ah, cruel time, to undeceive us!
The stream it is a naked stream,
Where we on Sundays used to ramble;
The sky hangs o’er a broken dream,
The brambles dwindled to a bramble.
O poesy is on the wane
I cannot find her haunts again.

Mere withered stalks and fading trees
And pastures spread with hills and rushes
Are all my fading vision sees.
Gone gone is raptures’s flooding gushes
When mushrooms they were fairy bowers,
Their marble pillars overswelling,
And danger paused to pluck the flowers
That in their swarthy rings were dwelling
But poesy’s spells are on the wane,
Nor joy nor fear is mine again.

Ah, poesy hath passed away
And fancy’s visions undeceive us;
The night hath ta’en the place of day
And why should passing shadows grieve us?
I thought the flowers upon the hills
Were flowers from Adam’s open gardens,
And I have had my summer thrills
And I have had my heart’s rewardings
So poesy is on its wane,
I hardly know her face again.

And friendship it hath burned away
Like to a very ember cooling,
A make-believe on April day
That sent the simple heart a-fooling,
Mere jesting in an earnest way,
Deceiving on and still deceiving,
And hope is but a fancy play
And joy the art of true believing
For poesy is on the wane
O could I feel her faith again.

John Clare (1793–1864)

I love such white and slender bodies

I love such white and slender bodies,
For tender souls the fitting shrine,
Such large wild eyes under a forehead
Where tumbling raven locks entwine.

You are indeed the type of woman
Whom I have sought in every land;
And my own worth, it must be granted,
Your kind could always understand.

You found in me the very lover
You need and whom you will repay
With showers of ardent love and kisses,
And then, as usual, betray.

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
Tr. Ernst Feise

The Silesian Weavers

No tears they shed from eyes of doom
Gnashing their teeth they sit at the loom:
“A shroud for Germany we weave
With a triple curse—and no reprieve!
We are weaving, we are weaving.

“A curse on the God to whom we prayed,
Who left us hungry, cold and dismayed;
We trusted and waited and hoped in vain,
He duped and fooled us again and again—
We are weaving, we are weaving!

“A curse on the King of the rich, whose ear
Was deaf to our grief and blind to our tear,
Who took the last penny out of our purse
And had us shot like mangy curs.
We are weaving, we are weaving!

“A curse on the fatherland, where apace
Grow the wealth of the rich, and our shame and disgrace,
Where every bud is felled by a blight,
Where rot and decay feed the parasite—
We are weaving, we are weaving!

“The loom groans with the shuttle’s flight,
We are busy weaving by day and by night—
A shroud for Old Germany we weave
With a triple curse—and no reprieve!
We are weaving, we are weaving!”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
Tr. Ernst Feise

Gone cold

And when you’re dead you have to lie
Such ages in the ground. Well, I
Am worried that before they raise
Us up, there will be long delays.

Just once, before my spark stops winking
And heart begins its final pinking,
Once more, I’d like, while I’m still human,
To court the favours of a woman.

And it must be a blonde, with eyes
As soft as moonlight makes the skies—
For in the end I cannot bear
Wild suntanned ladies with brown hair.

Young people crammed with vital force
Want passion turned up full, of course,
With all that racket, raving, swearing,
Mutual heart-rending and soul-tearing…

Not young—well into my third score—
And hardly healthy any more,
May I love once again, and be,
Lucky in love—but quietly!

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
© Tr. Alistair Elliot

Mrs. Worry

In my lucky time of radiance
The midges juggled their light dance.
My dear friends, full of love, would make
Sure I got some of my best steak,
Fraternally handing round
Fair shares of my last pound.

Now luck’s gone off, the wallet’s flat,
The friends have disappeared like that—
My sunny days are up the spout,
The midges are sitting this one out:
When luck has come and gone,
Midges and friends pass on.

Beside my bed in the winter night
Worry, my nurse, sits bolt upright.
She wears a waistcoat of white stuff,
A black cap, always, and takes snuff.
The snuffbox hinge creaks sadly.
The old neck wobbles badly.

Sometimes I dream that luck’s migrating
Back to me with a May of mating.
Midges in swarms and friends with purses—
The box creaks—Hope of heavenly mercies
Pops like a bubble—The old one blows
Her nicotine-stained nose.

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
© Tr. Alistair Elliot

Last will and testament

Now it’s time to be a ghost,
Better get my will engrossed.
Like a Christian I’ll devise
Presents for my enemies.

That respected opposition
Must inherit some fine day
All my sickness and decay,
My complete de-composition.

I bequeath you then the gripes
That inflate and pinch the tripes;
Simple pissing-pains; the wiles
Of perfidious Prussian piles.

You shall have my cramps and jerks,
Twitching limbs and running spittle,
Spine a kiln where bones burn brittle—
God the Giver’s purest works.

Postscript to the inheritance:
The Lord shall dowse when you have gone,
Your memory in oblivion,
And obliterate your monuments.

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
© Tr. Alistair Elliot

I saw them laugh

I saw them laugh, I saw them smile,
I saw their whole lives fall apart;
I heard their cries, death-rattles, while
I looked on with an easy heart.

I walked behind their coffins too,
Right to the churchyard, dressed in black.
And then, I won’t conceal from you
I took my lunch with some attack.

Now, all at once, I think with sadness
On the old crowd of long-dead forms:
As if in flares of amorous madness,
My heart turns over in strange storms.

It’s Julia’s tears that, bright and burning,
Run in my memory most of all;
The sorrow changes to wild yearning
And day and night it’s her I call.

Often she comes in fever-dreams,
The dead flower, posthumously now
Granting my ardour, as it seems,
A licence life would not allow.

Oh hold me, tender ghostly lover,
Hold me with all your fading power:
Press your sweet mouth to mine and cover
The bitterness of my last hour!

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
© Tr. Alistair Elliot

Anniversary

Nobody will sing a mass,
And no kaddish will be said.
Nothing said and nothing sung
In the first days I am dead.

But perhaps some later day
When the weather’s mild and clean,
Frau Mathilde will go walking
On Montmartre with Pauline,

With a crown of everlastings
Come to decorate and sigh
Pauvre homme! to my grave,
Sadness welling in her eye.

Pity, I live too high up
And I can’t produce a seat
For my darling here. Oh. she’s
Tottering on her tired feet.

Sweet, fat child, no, no, you mustn’t
Think of walking home. Ah, wait:
There’s a cab-rank—can you see?—
At the cemetery gate.

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
© Tr. Alistair Elliot

The Charming Woman

So Miss Myrtle is going to marry?
What a number of hearts she will break!
There’s Lord George, and Tom Brown, and Sir Harry
Who are dying of love for her sake!
‘Tis a match that we all must approve —
Let gossips say all that they can!
For indeed she’s a charming woman,
And he’s a most fortunate man!

Yes, indeed, she’s a charming woman,
And she reads both Latin and Greek—
And I’m told that she solved a problem
In Euclid before she could speak!
Had she been but a daughter of mine,
I’d have taught her to hem and to sew,—
But her mother (a charming woman)
Couldn’t think of such trifles, you know!

Oh, she’s really a charming woman!
But perhaps a little too thin:
And no wonder such very late hours
Should ruin her beautiful skin!
And her shoulders are rather too bare,
And her gown’s nearly up to her knees,
But I’m told that these charming women
May dress themselves as they please!

Yes, she’s really a charming woman!
But I thought I observed, by the bye,
A something—that’s rather uncommon,—
In the flash of that very bright eye?
It may be a mere fancy of mine,
Tho’ her voice has a very sharp tone,—
But I’m told that these charming women
Are inclined to have wills of their own!

She sings like a bullfinch or linnet,
And she talks like an Archbishop too;
Can play you a rubber and win it,—
If she’s got nothing better to do!
She can chatter of Poor-Laws and Tithes,
And the value of labour and land,—
‘Tis pity when charming women
Talk of things which they don’t understand.

I’m told that she hasn’t a penny,
Yet her gowns would make Maradan stare;
And I feel her bills must be many,—
But that’s only her husband’s affair!
Such husbands are very uncommon,
So regardless of prudence and pelf,—
But they say such a charming woman
Is a fortune, you know, in herself!

She’s brothers and sisters by dozens,
And all charming people, they say!
And several tall Irish cousins
Whom she loves in a sisterly way.
O young men, if you’d take my advice,
You would find it an excellent plan,—
Don’t marry a charming woman,
If you are a sensible man.

Helen Sheridan (1807–1867)

Death in the Kitchen

“Are we not here now?”—continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicular to the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability)—“and are we not” (dropping his hat upon the ground) “gone!—in a moment?”

TRISTRAM SHANDY

Trim, thou art right!—’Tis sure that I,
And all who hear thee, are to die.
The stoutest lad and wench
Must lose their places at the will
Of Death, and go at last to fill
The sexton’s gloomy trench.

The dreary grave!—Oh, when I think
How close ye stand upon its brink,
My inward spirit groans!
My eyes are filled with dismal dreams
Of coffins, and the kitchen seems
A charnel full of bones!

Yes, jovial butler, thou must fail,
As sinks the froth on thine own ale;
Thy days will soon be done!
Alas! the common hours that strike
Are knells; for life keeps wasting, like
A cask upon the run.

Ah, hapless scullion! ’tis thy case:
Life travels at a scouring pace,
Far swifter than thy hand.
The fast decaying frame of man
Is but a kettle, or a pan,
Time wears away—with sand!

Thou needst not, mistress cook! be told,
The meat to-morrow will be cold
That now is fresh and hot:
E’en this our flesh will, by the by,
Be cold as stone:—Cook, thou must die!
There’s death within the pot!

Susannah, too, my lady’s maid!
Thy pretty person once must aid
To swell the buried swarm!
The “glass of fashion” thou wilt hold
No more, but grovel in the mould
That’s not the “mould of form”!

Yes, Jonathan, that drives the coach,
He too will feel the fiend’s approach—
The grave will pluck him down:
He must in dust and ashes lie,
And wear the churchyard livery,
Grass-green, turn’d up with brown.

How frail is our uncertain breath!
The laundress seems full hale, but Death
Shall her “last linen” bring.
The groom will die, like all his kind;
And e’en the stable-boy will find
His life no stable thing.

Nay, see the household dog—e’en that
The earth shall take!—The very cat
Will share the common fall;
Although she hold (the proverb saith)
A ninefold life, one single death
Suffices for them all!

Cook, butler, Susan, Jonathan,
The girl that scours the pot and pan,
And those that tend the steeds—
All, all shall have another sort
Of service after this—in short,
The one the parson reads!

The dreary grave!—Oh, when I think
How close ye stand upon its brink,
My inward spirit groans!
My ears are fill’d with dismal dreams
Of coffins, and this kitchen seems
A charnel full of bones!

Thomas Hood (1799–1845)

Anticipation

Rise, squirrel, up the great oak, rise,
Climb the branch nearest to the skies,
Which bends and buckles like a reed.
Stork, ancient towers’ sentinel,
Fly up from spire and parish bell
To mighty keep and citadel—
Wing your way with the utmost speed!

Old eagle, from your aerie home
Soar to the age-old mountain-dome
Whitened with everlasting snow.
Lark that, in your unquiet nest,
No sunrise ever saw at rest,
Go up, go, zestful lark, go, zest-
ful lark, go up to heaven, go!

And tell me now, from the tree’s height,
From the stone towers’ topmost flight,
From bright sky and high bivouac,
On the horizon, through the haze,
O can you see a plume that sways,
A galloping horse that steams and sprays,
And my beloved coming back?

Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
Tr. E.H. and A.M. Blackmore

The Imperial Cloak

You honeybees whose work is play,
Who never look for any prey
But scents, breaths of celestial grace,
O you that flee the wintry hours,
And stealing amber from the flowers,
Make bounty for the human race,

Visiting on your way, like brides,
The lilies of the mountainsides,
You virtuous dew-drinking folk,
Daughters and sisters of the day
And scarlet petals, come away—
Rise up, fly from this cloak!

And hurl yourselves against the man!
You things of purity and plan,
Workers of good, wagers of war,
You wings of gold, you darts of fire,
Whirl round and round the shameful liar!
Tell him: “What do you take us for?

Accursed wretch, we are the bees!
Where vines cast shady draperies
On chalet walls, we build our nest;
Born in the azure, we repose
On the mouth of the parted rose,
On Plato’s lips we rest.

What comes from slime goes back again.
Go join Tiberius in his den,
Charles IX on his balcony.
Go! On your purple robe should strut,
Not the bees of Hymettus, but
The black flies of the gallows-tree!”

And sting the fellow, one and all.
Put to shame those who cringe and crawl;
Blind the deceitful renegade,
Hunt him down in a savage rout,
And let the insects drive him out,
Since men are too afraid!

Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
Tr. E.H. and A.M. Blackmore

“Be off!” say Winter’s snows…”

“Be off!” say Winter’s snows;
“Now it’s my turn to sing!”
So, startled, quivering,
Not daring to oppose

(Our fortitude grows dim in
The face of a Quos ego),
Away, my songs, must we go
Before those virile women!

Rain. We are forced to fly,
Everywhere, utterly.
End of the comedy.
Come, swallows, it’s good-bye.

Wind, sleet. The branches sway,
Writhing their stunted limbs,
And off the white smoke swims
Across the heavens’ gray.

A pallid yellow lingers
Over the chilly dale.
My keyhole blows a gale
Onto my frozen fingers.

Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
Tr. E.H. and A.M. Blackmore

“Beware of pretty girls …”

Beware of pretty girls, and shun
The Eden where those angels fall.
Evade every Parisian shawl;
From all Madrid’s mantillas run.

Fear for your threads, you marionette;
You bird, be anxious for your wings.
Mistrust the glance Calypso flings—
Still more, the gazings of Jeannette.

When girls’ affections have been gained,
Then we begin our slavery.
Friend, would you learn their ABC?
It spells adored, bekissed, and chained.

Glorious sunlight gilds a jail,
And roses scent a prison cell;
And by that method—know it well!—
The human female snares the male.

Your heart, when caught, beats to her wiles,
And dismal tunes are in your soul,
And very often, tears must roll
Before there had been time for smiles.

Turn to the meadows: the grass beams,
The woods are smiling and at ease,
Glad springtime shakes the great oak trees;
Come, let us sing of limpid streams!

Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
Tr. E.H. and A.M. Blackmore

Pretty Girls: Sonnet for an Album

You write them sonnets (sometimes pretty good);
You kiss the hands they deign to offer you;
You go with them to church, or through the wood;
You become Damis, and Clitandre too;

At the balls where they shine, you urge your suit;
You dance and laugh; and while you waltz around
Accompanied by oboe or by lute,
You hear them murmuring this lovely sound:

“Warfare is pious, power is everything;
Knowledge is dangerous; hanging is good;
More jails, and fewer schools, need to be built;

Our forts should be munitioned to the hilt
To stop the plebs from stirring.”—These doves would
Set dead-and-buried skeletons shuddering.

Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
Tr. E.H. and A.M. Blackmore

“Marble and night created me …”

Marble and night created me.
I, like the black feet of a tree,
Delve through the darkness underground.
Now I am listening. From below
I am telling the thunder: “No!
Wait! Not a single sound!”

I am the esoteric flight
Of stairs down in the silent night,
And Poet is my name;
I am the Stairway Tenebrae;
The dark opens dim eyes to see
My deathly spiral frame.

Torch-flame will turn to candle-glow.
Respect my virgin steps, and go,
If you prefer the light of day!
My steps were never meant to bear
The nude feet of a love affair,
Or the winged feet of play.

Before my livid depth the hosts
Are trembling and the very ghosts
Are seeping perspiration.
I come from the dead tomb; before
My upper limit, at this door,
Shines an illumination.

The revels laugh, the revels flare.
Leaders on bloodstained thrones are there,
Rejoicing in their own success.
All grovel to them, and all cower;
Every girl to their sovereign power
Imparts her nakedness.

No, leave the doorbolt and the key;
I am the Stair; the penalty
Is pondering; the time will end;
Someone surrounded by the shades
Will mount my somber balustrades,
And someone will descend.

Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
Tr. E.H. and A.M. Blackmore

To France

Wind, blow this book from me
To France, where I was bred!
From the uprooted tree,
See! The dead leaf is shed.

Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
Tr. E.H. and A.M. Blackmore

A Young Girl

I’m in love, and the plains are scented.
Blow on—blow away winter, breeze!
The birds within the woods of Asher
Seem to be souls among the trees.

See, the beloved seeks her lover;
He sings of me, and I of him.
And how delightful sleep is, shaded
Beneath a hanging cedar limb!

I sing of him when I awaken;
He wakens, and he sings of me;
And from the sound, the sunrise fancies
Each of us is a murmuring bee.

We hurry out to meet each other.
“O fairest of the fair,” he sings,
“Roses are underneath your footsteps,
And stars are trembling in your wings.”

I say: Earth has a hundred rulers
And lads past reckoning, O glade;
Yet of them all, he is my lover:
He is the light, and I the shade.

Again he sings, “Come wth me, vanish
Deep in the valleys: pass from sight
In the bedazzlement and terror
Of a mysterious starry night.”

I would die for his lips, I answer;
I would die for a single kiss;
The forests with their savage rustlings,
Well do they know the truth of this!

The skies are clear, the streams are flowing;
Our songs are scattered by the breeze
And intermingle in the heavens
Like arrows from two companies.

Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
Tr. E.H. and A.M. Blackmore

Politique

Dans Sainte-Pélagie,
Sous ce règne élargie,
Où, rêveur et pensif,
Je vis captif,

Pas une herbe ne pousse
Et pas un brin de mousse
Le long des murs grillés
Et frais taillés!

Oiseau qui fends l’espaceÚ
Et toi, brise, qui passé
Sur l’étroit horizon
De la prison,

Dans votre vol superbe,
Apportez-moi quelque herbe,
Quelque gramen, mouvant
Sa tête au vent!

Qu’à mes pieds tourbillonne
Une feuille d’automne
Peint de cent couleurs
Comme les fleurs!

Pour que mon âme triste
Sache encor qu’il existe
Une nature, un Dieu
Dehors ce lieu,

Faites-moi cette joie,
Qu’un instant je revoie
Quelque chose de vert
Avant l’hiver!

[1831]

Gérard de Nerval (1808–1855)

Politics

In Sainte-Pélagie prison,
Under this liberal regime,
Where, dreaming and thoughtful,
I languish a captive,

Not a blade of grass,
And no moss grows,
Along the recently constructed
Barred walls!

O bird cleaving space…
And breeze passing over
The narrow horizon
Of our prison,

In your proud flight
Bring me some weed,
Or blade of grass that has stirred
Its head in the wind!

Let an autumn leaf
Whirl at my feet
Painted with hundreds of colours
Like the flowers!

So my unhappy soul
May know there still are
Nature and God
Beyond this prison,

Permit me this pleasure,
Let me see for a moment
Something that is green
Before winter!

[1831]

Gérard de Nerval (1808–1855)
© Tr. Geoffrey Wagner

Noblemen and Lackeys/ Nobles et Valets

Those noblemen old days you read of in books,
Mighty men with faces like beef and figures out of Dante,
Their bodies fashioned from huge bones,
Seemed to stem, root and stock, from the soil.

If they came back to earth and took into their heads
To see who had inherited their immortal names,
A Laridon progeny, cringing, greedy, and degraded,
Who clutter the mansions of our ministers today,

Frail fellows, corseted, wearing chest-pads and false calves:
Surely then those noble men would know
That since their days their daughters had mingled much
Of the blood of lackeys with that of aristocracy.

Gérard de Nerval (1808–1855)
© Tr. Geoffrey Wagner

The Cousin/ La Cousine

Winter has its pleasures, and often, on Sunday
When a little sunshine yellows the white ground,
One goes out for a walk with a girl cousin …
—Now don’t you make us have to wait dinner,

Says her mother. And when one’s had a good look
Outside the Tuileries at the flowered dresses under the black trees,
The young girl feels cold … and points out to you
That the evening mist is starting to rise.

And one goes back, talking about the lovely day
That one’s sorry has ended so soon (flirting discreetly),
And one smells from the bottom of the stairs,
Coming in with a big appetite, the roasting turkey.

[ca 1830–32]

Gérard de Nerval (1808–1855)
Tr. JF

Fantasy/ Fantaisie

There is a melody for which I would give
All Rossini, all Mozart, all Weber,
An ancient air, languishing and funereal,
Which has for me its special secret charms.

And every time that I chance to hear it,
My soul becomes a couple of centuries younger;
It’s the age of Louis the Thirteenth, and stretching before me
Is a green slope, gilded by the setting sun.

Then a brick chateau, with stone quoins
And window-panes tinged with reddish hues,
Surrounded by great parks, with a river
Laving its feet and gliding between flowers.

Then a lady in her high window,
Fair, with dark eyes, in an old-fashioned dress,
Whom perhaps, in another existence,
I have seen before and am now remembering.

Gérard de Nerval (1808–1855)
Tr. JF

Myrtho

Myrtho, I think of you, O divine enchantress,
On lofty Pausillipe, aglow with a thousand fires,
Your brows drenched with the lights of the Orient,
And dark grapes mingling with the gold of your tresses.

It is from your cup too that I have drunk rapture,
And from the secret glints of your smiling eye
When I was found praying at the feet of Dionysus,
The Muse having made me one of the sons of Greece.

I know why the volcano has reopened down there…
It is because your nimble feet touched it yesterday.
And suddenly the horizon has been covered with ashes.

Since the time when a Norman duke broke your clay idols,
Always, under the branches of Virgil’s laurel,
The pale hydrangea joins with the green myrtle.

[1854]

Gérard de Nerval (1808–1855)
Tr. JF

To Juana

Wonderful! So you’re back, madame,—
Of all the lovers in my life,
You the tenderest and the first!
Do you remember our affair?
I’ve treasured it in my memory:—
It was, I believe, in the late summer.

Ah, marquise, when one thinks about it ,
The days that one consumes in frenzy
Give us the slip and fly away. !
But really and truly, my long-lost love,
Though no-one know it, in the winter,
I’m twenty still, and you eighteen.

Ah yes! my Love—and cross my heart!—,
If the rose is a little paler now,
It’s still retained all of its beauty.
Never was any Spanish head
So beautiful, so crazy-wild.
You remember that summer, don’t you?

All those evenings? that big quarrel?
You gave me— how I remember it!—
Your golden necklace to calm me down,
And for three nights, I swear to you,
I woke up every quarter-hour
To gaze on it and give it kisses.

And your duenna, oh cursed duenna,
And that diabolical day
When, O my Andalusian pearl
You did your best to blow away
Your ancient spouse with jealousy,
And your young lover with delight.

Be careful, though, madame marquise;
Such love, whatever people say,
Can resurrect itself sometimes.
When a heart has filled itself with you,
Juana, the space simply become
Too big for any other love.

But what am I saying? so goes the world.
How can I fight against the tide
With waves that never cease advancing?
So close your eyes, your arms, your soul;
Adieu, my life,—adieu, madame.
That’s the way of the world down here.

Time carries off upon its wings
The springtime and the darting swallows,
And life and the departed days.
All of it vanishes like smoke,
And so does hope, and so renown—,
And I, who felt such love for you,
And you, who don’t remember it.

Alfred de Musset (1810–1857)

To Pépa

Pépa, when the night has come
And your mama has said goodnight
And half undressed under the lamp
You’re bowing your head to say your prayers;

At the hour when the troubled spirit
Yields to the wisdom of the night;
At the moment of taking off your cap
And having a look under the bed;

When sleep has flooded in and covered
Your family out there around you’
O Pépita, you charming girl,
What, my love, are you thinking about?

Who knows? Perhaps of the heroine
Of some unfortunate romance;
Of all the things that hope foretells
And cruel reality denies;

Perhaps of those majestic mountains
That give birth only to a mouse;
Of lovers in romantic Spain;
Of candies; of, perhaps, a spouse;

Perhaps of the tender confidences
Of a heart naïve as your own;
Of your dress; of airs that you dance to;
Perhaps of me—perhaps of nothing.

Alfred de Musset (1810–1857)

À Julie

On me demande, par les rues,
Pourquoi je vais bayant au grues,
Fumant mon cigare au soleil,
À quoi se passe ma jeunesse,
Et depuis trois ans de paresse,
Ce qu’ont fait mes nuits sans sommeil.

Donne-moi tes lèvres, Julie;
Les folles nuit qui t’ont palie
Ont seché leur corail luisant.
Parfume-les de ton haleine,
Donne-les-moi, mon Africaine,
Tes belles lèvres de pur sang.

Mon imprimeur crie à tue-tête
Que sa machine est toujours prête,
Et que la mienne n’en peut mais.
D’honnêtes gens, qu’un club admire,
N’ont pas dédaigne de prédire
Que je n’en reviendrai jamais.

Julie, as-tue du vin d’Espagne?
Hier, nous battions la campagne;
Va donc voir s’il en reste encor.
Ta bouche est brûlante, Julie;
Inventons donc quelque folie
Qui nous perde l’âme et le corps.

On dit que mon gourme me rentre;
Que je n’ai plus rien dans le ventre,
Que je suis vide à faire peur;
Je crois, si j’en valais la peine,
Qu’on m’enverrait à Saint-Hélène,
Avec un cancer dans le coeur.

Allons, Julie, il faut t’attendre
A me voir quelque jour en cendre,
Comme Hercule sur son rocher.
Puisque c’est par toi que j’expire,
Ouve ta robe, Dejanire,
Que je monte sur mon bucher.

Alfred de Musset (1810–1857)

To Julie

They ask me on the boulevards
Why I stroll around gaping at the tarts,
Puffing on my cigar in the sun,
And what’s happened to my youth,
What’s come of all those wakeful nights
During three years of idleness.

Julie, give me your lips again.
The wild nights that tired you out
Have dulled their glistening red.
Sweeten them with your breath.
Give them to me, my lovely African,
Give me your pure-blood lips.

My printer yells at the top of his voice
That his machine stands always ready
And that mine can’t do a thing.
Snug in their admiring cliques,
Worthy citizens announce
That, oh dear! I’m all washed up.

Julie, do you have any Spanish red?
Yesterday we were out of our minds;
Go and see if there’s still some left.
Your mouth is burning, burning, Julie.
Let’s think of something fantastic
To waste us utterly, body and soul.

They say that my wild oats are finished,
That I’ve nothing left in my guts,
That I’m so empty it’s scary.
I think that if I were worth the effort,
They’d ship me off to St. Helena,
With a cancer in my heart.

Well, Julie, you’d better expect
To see me in ashes some day.
Like Hercules on his rock.
Since it’s of you that I’m perishing,
Open your robe, Deianira,
So that I can mount my pyre.

Alfred de Musset (1810–1857)
Tr. JF

Hercules’ wife Deianira unintentionally poisoned him,
and his body was burned.

The Hand and Foot

The hand and foot that stir not, they shall find
Sooner than all the rightful place to go:
Now in their motion free as roving wind,
Though first no snail so limited and slow;
I mark them full of labor all the day,
Each active motion made in perfect rest;
They cannot from their path mistaken stray,
Though ‘tis not theirs, yet in it they are blest;
The bird has not their hidden track found out,
The cunning fox though full of art he be;
It is the way unseen, the certain route,
Wherever bound, yet thou art eve free;
The path of Him, whose perfect law of love
Bids spheres and atoms in just order move.

Jones Very (1813–1889)

The Lost

The fairest day that ever yet has shone,
Will be when thou the day within shalt see;
The fairest rose that ever yet has blown,
When thou the flower thou lookest on shalt be;
But thou art far away among Time’s toys;
Thyself the day thou lookest for in them,
Thyself the flower that now thine eye enjoys,
But wilted now thou hang’st upon thy stem.
The bird thou hearest on the budding tree,
Thou hast made sing with thy forgotten voice,
But when it swells again to melody,
The song is thine in which thou wilt rejoice;
And thou new risen ‘midst these wonders live
That now to them dost all thy substance give.

Jones Very (1813–1889)

The Created

There is naught for thee by thy haste to gain;
‘Tis not the swift with Me that win the race;
Through long endurance of delaying pain,
Thine opened eye shall see thy Father’s face;
Nor here nor there, where now thy feet would turn,
Thou wilt find Him who ever seeks for thee;
But let obedience quench desires that burn,
And where thou art, thy Father too will be!
Behold! as day by day the spirit grows,
Thou see’st by inward light things hid before;
Till what God is, thyself His image shows;
And thou dost wear the robe that first thou wore,
When bright with radiance from His forming hand,
He saw thee lord of all His creatures stand.

Jones Very (1813–1889)

From Moby Dick, chapter 133

Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a moon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually wet in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, as musical rippling playfully accompanied the shade; and behind, the blue water interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowls softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale’s back, and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-footed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons.

Herman Melville (1819–1891)

And me my winter’s task is drawing over

And me my winter’s task is drawing over,
Though night and winter shake the drifted door.
Critic or friend, dispraiser or approver,
I come not now nor fain would offer more.
But when buds break and round the fallen limb
The wild weeds crowd in clusters and corymb,
When twilight rings with the red robin’s plaint,
Let me give something—though my heart be faint—
To thee, my more than friend!—believer! lover!
The gust has fallen now, and all is mute—
Save pricking on the pane the sleety showers,
The clock that ticks like a belated foot,
Time’s hurrying steps, the twanging of the hours:
Wait for those days, my friend, or get thee fresher flowers.

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (1821–1873)

And change with hurried hand has swept these scenes

And change with hurried hand has swept these scenes:
The woods have fallen, across the meadow-lot
The hunter’s trail and trap-path is forgot,
And fire has drunk the swamp of evergreens;
Yet for a moment let my fancy plant
These autumn hills again: the wild dove’s haunt,
The wild deer’s walk. In golden umbrage shut,
The Indian river runs, Quonecktacut!
Here, but a lifetime back, where falls tonight
Behind the curtained pane a sheltered light
On buds of rose or vase of violet
Aloft upon the marble mantel set,
Here in the forest-heart, hung blackening
The wolfbait on the bush beside the spring.

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (1821–1873)

And faces, forms and phantoms, numbered not

And faces, forms and phantoms, numbered not,
Gather and pass like mist upon the breeze,
Jading the eye with uncouth images:
Women with muskets, children dropping shot
By fields half harvested or left in fear
Of Indian inroads, or the Hessian near;
Disaster, poverty, and dire disease.
Or from the burning village through the trees
I see the smoke in reddening volumes roll,
The Indian file in shadowy silence pass
While the last man sets up the trampled grass,
The Tory priest declaiming, fierce and fat,
The Shay’s man with the green bough in his hat,
Or silent sagamore, Shaug or Wassahoale.

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (1821–1873)

The Cricket

I

The humming bee purrs softly o’er his flower;
From lawn and thicket
The dogday locust singeth in the sun
From hour to hour:
Each has his bard, and thou, ere day be done,
Shalt have no wrong.
So bright that murmur mid the insect crowd,
Muffled and lost in bottom grass, or loud
By pale and picket:
Shall I not take to help me in my song
A little cooing cricket?

II

The afternoon is sleepy; let us lie
Beneath these branches while the burdened brook,
Muttering and moaning to himself, goes by;
And mark our minstrel’s carol while we look
Toward the faint horizon swooning blue,
Or in a garden bower,
Trellised and trammeled with deep drapery
Of hanging green,
Light glimmering through—
There let the dull hop be,
Let bloom, with poppy’s dark refreshing flower:
Let the dead fragrance round our temples beat,
Stunning the sense to slumber, whilst between
The falling water and fluttering wind
Mingle and meet,
Murmur and mix,
No few faint pipings from the glades behind,
Or alder-thicks:
But louder as the day declines,
From tingling tassel, blade, and sheath,
Rising from nets of river vines,
Winnows and ricks,
Above, beneath,
At every breath,
At hand, around, illimably,
Rising and falling like the sea,
Acres of cricks.

III

Dear to the child who hears thy rustling voice
Cease at his footstep, though he hears thee still,
Cease and resume with vibrance crisp and shrill,
Thou sittest in the sunshine to rejoice.
Night lover too; bringer of all things dark
And rest and silence, yet thou bringest to me
Always that burthen of the unresting Sea,
The moaning cliffs, the low rocks blackly stark;
These upland inland fields no more I view,
But the long flat seaside beach, the wild seamew,
And the overturning wave!
Thou bringest, too, dim accents from the grave
To him who walketh when the day is dim,
Dreaming of those who dream no more of him,
With edged remembrances of joy and pain;
And heyday looks and laughter come again:
Forms that in happy sunshine lie and leap,
With faces where but now a gap must be,
Renunciations and partitions deep
And perfect tears and crowning vacancy!
And to thy poet at the twilight’s hush,
No chirping touch of lips and laugh and blush,
But wringing arms, hearts wild with love and woe,
Closed eyes, and kisses that would not let go!

IV

So wert thou loved in that old graceful time
When Greece was fair,
While god and hero harkened to thy chime,
Softly astir
Where the long grasses fringed Cayester’s lip;
Long-drawn, with glimmering sails of swan and ship,
And ship and swan;
Or where
Reedy Eurotas ran.
Did that low warble teach thy tender flute
Xenaphyle?
Its breathings mild?/ say!, did the grasshopper
Sit golden in thy purple hair
O Psammathe?
Or wert thou mute,
Grieving for Pan amid the alders there?
And by the water and along the hill
That thirsty tinkle in the herbage still,
Though the lost forest wailed to horns of Arcady?

V

Like the Enchanter old—
Who sought mid the dead water’s weeds and scum
For evil growth beneath the moonbeam cold,
Or mandrake or dorcynium;
And touched the leaf that opened both his ears,
So that articulate voices now he hears
In cry of beast, or bird, or insect’s hum—
Might I but find thy knowledge in thy song!
That twittering tongue,
Ancient as light, returning like the years.
So might I be,
Unwise to sing, thy true interpreter
Through denser stillness and in sounder dark,
Than ere thy notes have pierced to harrow me.
So might I stir
The world to hark
To thee my lord and lawgiver,
And cease my quest:
Content to bring thy wisdom to the world;
Content to gain at last some low applause,
Now low, now lost
Like thine from mossy stone, amid the stems and stones,
Or garden gravemound tricked and dressed—
Powdered and pearled
By stealing frost—
In dusky rainbow beauty of euphorbias!
For larger would be less indeed, and like
The ceaseless simmer in the summer grass
To him who toileth in the windy field,
Or where the sunbeams strike,
Naught in innumerable numerousness.
So might I much possess,
So much must yield;
But failing this, the dell and grassy dike,
The water and the waste shall still be dear,
And all the pleasant plots and places
Where thou hast sung, and I have hung
To ignorantly hear.
Then Cricket, sing thy song! or answer mine!
Thine whispers blame, but mine has naught but praises.
It matters not. Behold! the autumn goes,
The shadow grows,
The moments take hold of eternity;
Even while we stop to wrangle or repine
Our lives are gone—
Like thinnest mist,
Like yon escaping color in the tree;
Rejoice! rejoice! whilst yet the hours exist—
Rejoice or mourn, and let the world swing on
Unmoved by cricket song of thee or me.

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (1821–1873)

The Queen of Hearts

How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we
Play cards together, you invariably,
However the pack parts,
Still hold the Queen of Hearts?

I’ve scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze,
Resolved to fathom these your secret ways:
But, sift them as I will,
Your ways are secret still.

I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again;
But all my cutting, shuffling, prove in vain:
Vain hope, vain forethought too;
That Queen still falls to you.

I dropped her once, prepense, but ere the deal
Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel:
“There should be one card more,”
You said, and searched the floor.

I cheated once; I made a private notch
In Heart-Queen’s back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch;
Yet such another back
Deceived me in the pack:

The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown
An imitative dint that seemed my own;
This notch, not of my doing,
Misled me to my ruin.

It baffles me to puzzle out the clue,
Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you:
Unless, indeed, it be
Natural affinity.

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

Good morning, Midnight

Good morning, Midnight,
I’m coming home;
Day got tired of me;
How could I of him?

Sunshine was a sweet place;
I liked to stay;
But Morn didn’t want me now,
So goodnight Day!

I can look, can’t I,
When the East is red?
The hills have a way then,
That puts the heart abroad.

You are not so fair, Midnight;
I chose Day.
But please take a little girl;
He turned away.

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

It was not death

It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down;
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of mine—

As if my life were shaven,
And fitted to a frame,
And could not break without a key,
And ‘twas like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped,
And space stares all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground;

But most like Chaos, stopless, cool,
Without a chance or spar,
Or even a report of land,
To justify despair.

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

What shall I do?

What shall I do when the summer troubles,
What when the rose is ripe?
What when the eggs fly off in music
From the maple keep?

What shall I do when the skies a-chirrup
Drop a tune on me?
When the bee hangs all noon in the buttercup,
What will become of me?

Oh, when the squirrel fills his pockets
And the berries stare,
How can I bear their jocund faces,
Thou from here so far?

‘Twouldn’t afflict a robin,
All his goods have wings.
I do not fly, so wherefore
My perennial things?

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

These are the days

These are the days when birds come back—
A very few, a bird or two—
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old, old sophistries of June,
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

O sacrament of summer days,
O last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join;

Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to take,
And thine immortal wine.

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

He touched me

He touched me, so I live to know
That such a day, permitted so,
I groped upon his breast;
It was a boundless place to me
And silenced, as the awful sea
Puts minor streams to rest.

And now, I’m different from before,
As if I breathed superior air,
Or brushed a royal gown;
My feet, too, that had wandered so,
My gypsy face, transfigured now,
To tenderer renown.

Into this port, if I might come,
Rebecca to Jerusalem,
Would not so ravished turn;
Nor Persian, baffled at her shrine,
Lift such a crucifixal sign
To her imperial sun.

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

Twas warm at first

‘Twas warm at first like us
Until there crept thereon
A chill, like frost upon a glass,
Till all the scene be gone.

The forehead copied stone,
The fingers grew too cold
To ache, and like a skater’s brook,
The busy eye congealed.

It straightened—that was all;
It crowded cold to cold;
It multiplied indifference
As pride were all it could.

And even when with cords
‘Twas lowered like a freight,
It made no signal, nor demurred,
But dropped like adamant.

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

Les Corbeaux

De la Germanie à l’Ukraine,
Ils ouvrent leur ailes au vent;
Ils s’en vont jetant dans la plaine
Leurs voix en rauque râlement.
Pour leur la moisson est superbe;
Les morts sont là, semés dans l’herbe,
O noirs oiseaux, comme un froment.

Allez et dans les yeux pleins d’ombre
Ainsi qu’en des coupes, buvez;
Allez, corbeaux, allez sans nombre,
Vous serez tous désaltérés
Puis, revenant à tire d’aile,
Au nid portez la chair nouvelle;
Vos doux petits sont affamés.

Allez, corbeaux, prenez sans crainte
Ses affreux et sacrés lambeaux;
Contre vous n’ira nulle plainte;
Vous êtes purs, ô noirs oiseaux.
Allez vers les peuples esclaves,
Allez, semant le sang des braves;
Qu’il germe pour les temps nouveaux.

Louise Michel (1830–1905)

The Crows

From Germany to the Ukraine,
They’re spreading their wings upon the wind,
And casting down over the fields
Their raucous, rasping, rattling cries.
For them the harvest is superb;
The dead are there, oh you black birds,
Strewn among the grass like wheat.

Go, and from eyes brimmed with darkness
Drink your fill as though from cups;
Go, you crows, you numberless crows,
You’ll all find your thirst is quenched.
Then, up again on beating wings,
Carry the new flesh to your nests;
Your little ones are hungry there.

Go, you crows, take without fear
Those terrible and sacred scraps;
Against you there’ll be no complaints
You are pure, you black, black birds.
Go to the peoples now enslaved
Go, sowing the blood of the brave;
May it spring up in days to come.

Louise Michel (1830–1905)
Tr. JF

Chanson du Cirque; Les Courses de Taureaux

Les hauts barons blasonnés d’or,
Les duchesses de similor,
Les viveuses toutes hagardes,
Les crevés aux faces blafardes,
Vont s’égayer. Ah! oui, vraiment,
Jacques Bonhomme est bon enfant.

C’est du sang vermeil qu’ils vont voir.
Jadis, comme un rouge abattoir,
Paris ne fut pour eux qu’un drame;
Et ce souvenir les affame;
Ils en ont soif. Ah! oui, vraiment,
Jacques Bonhomme est bon enfant.

Peut-être qu’ils visent plus heureux.
Aprés le cirque l’échafaud;
La morgue corsera la fête.
Aujourd’hui seulement la bête
Et demain l’homme. Ah! oui, vraiment,
Jacques Bonhomme est bon enfant.

Les repus ont le rouge aux yeux,
Et cela fait songer les gueux,
Les gueux expirant de misère;
Tant mieux! au fainéants la guerre;
Ils ne diront plus si longtemps:
Jacques Bonhomme est bon enfant.

Louise Michel (1830–1905)

Circus Song: Bullfights

The high-and-mighty gilded barons,
The pinchbeck duchesses,
The wild-eyed goodtime girls,
The rakes with livid faces,
Want a good time. Ah! yes, indeed.
Jack the Clown’s a decent lad.

It’s crimson blood they want to see.
Before, as a red slaughter-house,
Paris was only theatre for them;
And now they’re craving more;
They’re thirsty for it. Ah! yes, indeed.
Jack the Clown’s a decent lad.

Maybe they’re looking even further.
After the circus, the scaffold;
The morgue will round out the fête.
Today, it’s just animals;
Tomorrow, men. Ah! yes, indeed.
Jack the Clown’s a decent lad.

The jaded have blood in their eyes,
And that’s giving the beggars ideas,
Beggars who’re dying in misery.
All the better! War on the idle!
They won’t be saying much longer:
Jack the Clown’s a decent lad.

Louise Michel (1830–1905)
Tr. JF

V’la le choléra

Parait qu’on attend le cholera
La chose est positive
On n’sait quand il arriv’ra
Mais on sait qu’il arrive

Les pharmaciens vont répétant
Il vient la chose est sûre
Ach’tez-nous désinfectants
Du sulfur de chloride.

Les sacristans et les abbés
Répétent des cantiiques
Pour attirer les macchabées
Dans leurs sacrées boutiques

On rassemble des capitaux
Pour fabriquer des bières
On viendra des cerceuils
À la port’ des cimitières

Tous les matins avant midi
Dans une immense fosse
On apport’ra les refroids
Qu’on empl’ra par grosse

L’bon Dieu du haut du sacré coeur
Chant’ avec tout sa clique
Et les cagots reprennent en coeur
Crève la république

V’la l’choléra v’la la choléra
V’la l’choléra qu’arrive
De l’une à l’autre riv’
Tout l’monde en crév’ra

Louise Michel (1830–1905)

Hey, cholera

Seems they’re expecting cholera
It’s absolutely certain
Don’t know just when
But they know it’s coming.

The pharmacists keep repeating
It’s coming for sure
Buy our disinfectants
Sulphur and chloride

The sextons and clerics
Keep up their chanting
To lure dummies
Into their holy booths

Capital’s being assembled
To manufacture coffins
They’ll sell coffins
At the cemetery gates.

Every day before noon
Stiffs will be brought
To a huge trench
Filled up by the gross.

High over Sacré Coeur
The good Lord chants with his clique
And the bigots take up the refrain
Death to the Republic

Hey cholera hey cholera
Hey cholera’s coming
You’ll all die of it
From end to end of the city

Louise Michel (1830–1905)
Tr. JF

Sea Breeze

The flesh is sad, alas! – and I’ve read all the books.
Let’s go! Far off. Let’s go! I sense
That the birds, intoxicated, fly
Deep into unknown spume and sky!
Nothing – not even old gardens mirrored by eyes –
Can restrain this heart that drenches itself in the sea,
O nights, or the abandoned light of my lamp,
On the void of paper, that whiteness defends,
No, not even the young woman feeding her child.
I shall go! Steamer, straining at your ropes
Lift your anchor towards an exotic rawness!

A Boredom, made desolate by cruel hope
Still believes in the last goodbye of handkerchiefs!
And perhaps the masts, inviting lightning,
Are those the gale bends over shipwrecks,
Lost, without masts, without masts, no fertile islands…
But, oh my heart, listen to the sailors’ chant!

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898)
Tr. A.S. Klein

Le Pitre Chatié

Pour ses yeux—pour nager dans ces lacs, dont les quais
Sont plantés de beaux cils qu’un matin bleu pénètre,
J’ai, Muse, moi, ton pitre—enjambé la fenêtre
Et fui notre baraque où fument tes quinquets.

Et d’herbes enivré, j’ai plongé comme un traitre
Dans ces lacs defendu, et, quand tu m’appelais,
Baigné mes membres nus dans l’onde aux blancs galets,
Oubliant mon habit de pitre au tronc de hêtre.

Le soleil du matin séchait mon corps nouveau
Et je sentais fraîchir loin de ta tyrannie
La neige des glaciers dans ma chair assainie,

Ne sachant pas, hélas ! quand s’en allait sur l’eau
Le suif de mes cheveux et le fard de mon peau,
Muse, que cette crasse était tout la génie.

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898)

The Chastened Clown

For her eyes—to bathe in those lakes whose banks
Are planted with lovely lashes which a blue morning penetrates—,
I, I your clown, Muse, hopped through the window
And fled our booth where your lamps smoke.

Intoxicated by the grass, I plunged like a traitor
Into those forbidden lakes, and, when you called me,
Laved my naked limbs in the water over the white pebbles,
Forgetting my clown’s costume on the trunk of a beech tree.

The morning sun dried my new-found body
And, far from your tyranny, I felt the snow of glaciers
Cooling my cleansed flesh,

Not knowing, alas! as the hair-grease and make-up
Floated away on the water, oh Muse,
That that muck was all part of genius.

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898)
Tr. JF

Bruxelles: Chevaux de bois

Tournez, tournez, bons chevaux de bois,
Tournez cent tours, tournez mille tours,
Tournez souvent et tournez toujours,
Tournez, tournez au son de hautbois.

Le gros soldat, la plus grosse bonne
Sont sur vos dos comme dans leur chambre,
Car en ce jour au bois de Cambre
Les maîtres sont tous deux en personne.

Tournez, tournez, chevaux de leur coeur.
Tandis qu’autour de tous vos tournois
Clignote l’oeil du filou sournois,
Tournez au son du piston vainqueur.

C’est ravissant comme ça vous soûle
D’aller ainsi dans ce cirque bête:
Bien dan le ventre et mal dane la tête,
Du mal en masse et du bien en foule.

Tournez, tournez sans qu’il soit besoin
D’user jamais de nulls éperons
Pour commander à vos gallops ronds,
Tournez, tournez sans espoir de foin.

Et dépéchez, chevaux de leur âme:
Déjà voici qu la nuit qui tombe
Va réunir pigeon et colombe
Loin de la foire et loin de madame.

Tournez, tournez! Le ciel en velours
D’astres en or se vêt lentement.
Voici partir l’amante et l’amant.
Tournez au son joyeux des tambours!

Paul Verlaine(1844–1896)

Faut Hurler avec les Loups!!

1er COUPLET

Je m’suis marié le cinq ou l’six
D’Avril ou d’Mai d’l’anné’ dergnière,
Je devins veuf le neuf ou l’dix
D’Juin ou d’Juillet, j’m’en souviens guère…
—Ah! mon bonhomm’, me direz-vous,
Quel malheur! que j’te trouve à plaindre!
—Il faut hurler avec les loups!
J’vas geindre!

2e COUPLET

Bien que la pert’ de moi moitié
Fût pour mon âme un coup bien rude,
Quéqu’temps après j’me suis r’marié,
Histoir’ d’en pas perdr’ l’habitude…
—Ah! mon bonhomm’, me direz-vous,
C’te fois-ci, ton étoil’ va r’luire…
—Il faut hurler avec les loups !!
J’vas rire !!

3e COUPLET

Mais à part qu’elle est chauv’ tandis
Qu’l’aut’ s’contentait d’un g’nou modeste,
Joséphin’ c’est, quand je vous l’dis,
L’mêm’ caractèr’ que feu Céleste…
Ah! mon bonhomm’, me direz-vous,
Pour le coup, c’est d’un veine à r’vendre,
—J’veux plus hurler avec les loups!
J’vas m’pendre!

Paul Verlaine(1844–1896)

Howling with the Wolves

Théâtre des Folies-Hainaut.
Music by M. Pablo de Herlañes.
Sung by Edmond Lepelletier

Got married on the fifth or sixth
Of April or May in the past year.
Was widowed on the ninth or tenth
Of July, can hardly remember it
—Oh my dear chap! you’re going to say,
What rotten luck! How I pity you!
—One has to howl with the wolves, you know!
I’ll whine a bit.

Although the loss of my better half
Was a pretty tough blow for me to take,
After a bit I got hitched again,
Just so as not to lose the habit
—Oh my dear chap! you’re going to say,
This time it’ll be your lucky star…
—One has to howl with the wolves, you know!
I’ll laugh.

But apart from liking to bare it all
While the other stopped with a modest knee,
Josephine has, I’m telling you,
The same nature as dead Céleste…
—Oh my dear chap! you’re going to say,
This time you’ve really got luck to spare.
—Well, I don’t want to howl with the wolves.
I’ll hang myself.

Paul Verlaine(1844–1896)
Tr. JF

Pensionnaires

L’une avait quinze ans, l’autre en avait seize;
Toutes deux dormaient dans la même chambre.
C’était par un soir très lourde de septembre.
Frêles, des yeux bleues, des rougeurs de fraise.

Chacune a quitté, pour se mettre à l’aise,
La fine chemise au frais parfum d’ambre.
La plus jeune étend les bras, et se cambre,
Et sa soeur, les main sur ses seins, la baise,

Puis tombe à genoux, pluis devient farouche
Et tumultueuse et folle, et sa bouche
Plonge sous l’or blond, dans des ombres grises;

Et l’enfant, pendant ce temps là, recense
Sur ses doigts mignons des valses promises,
Et, rose, sourit avec innocence.

Paul Verlaine(1844–1896)

Boarding School Girls

One of them was fifteen, the other one sixteen,
The two of them slept in the same room.
It was a sultry evening in September:
Slender, blue-eyed, their skins a delicate pink.

They’ve each removed, so as to be more comfortable,
Their thin nightgowns, delicately scented with amber.
The younger one spreads her arms and arches her back,
And her sister, putting her hands on her breasts, kisses her,

Then falls on her knees, and goes absolutely wild,
And her mouth plunges tumultuously
Below the pale gold, into the mysterious darkness;

And the younger one, while this is going on, tots up
On her charming little fingers the waltzes promised,
For the coming dance, and, a little pinker, smiles gently.

Paul Verlaine(1844–1896)
Tr. JF

Impression Fausse

Dame souris trotte,
Noir dans le gris du soir,
Dame souris trotte,
Grise dans le noir.

On sonne la cloche,
Dormez, les bons prisonniers;
On sonne la cloche:
Faut que vous dormiez.

Pas de mauvais rêve,
Ne pensez qu’à vos amours.
Pas de mauvais rêve;
Les belles toujours!

La grand clair de lune!
On ronfle ferme à côté
Le grand clair de lune
En réalité.

Un nuage passe,
Il fait noir comme en un four.
Un nuage passe.
Tiens, le petit jour!

Dame souris trotte,
Rose dans le rayons bleu.
Dame souris trotte;
Debout, paresseux!

Paul Verlaine(1844–1896)

Deceptive Impression

Mrs Mouse trots,
Dark in the twilight,
Mrs Mouse trots,
Grey in the dark.

They’ve rung the bell,
Sleep, little prisoners!
They’ve rung the bell:
Time for beddy-byes.

No bad dreams:
Just think of your loves.
No bad dreams:
Only pretty girls.

The bright moonlight …!
Deep snores accompany
The bright moonlight
In reality.

A cloud passes;
It’s black as a coal-cellar,
A cloud passes.
Look, daybreak.

Mrs Mouse trots,
Pink in the azure rays.
Mrs Mouse trots:
On your feet, lazybones!

Paul Verlaine(1844–1896)
Tr. JF

After Trinity

We have done with dogma and divinity
Easter and Whitsun past,
The long, long Sundays after Trinity
Are with us at last;
The passionless Sundays after Trinity,
Neither feast-day nor fast.

Christmas comes with plenty,
Lent spreads out its pall,
But these are five and twenty,
The longest Sundays of all;
The placid Sundays after Trinity,
Wheat-harvest, fruit-harvest, Fall.

Spring with its burst is over,
Summer has had its day,
The scented grasses and clover
Are cut, and dried into hay;
The singing-birds are silent,
And the swallows flown away.

Post pugnam pausa fiet;
Lord, we have made our choice;
In the stillness of autumn quiet,
We have heard the still, small voice.
We have sung Oh where shall Wisdom?
Thick paper, folio, Boyce.

Let it not all be sadness,
Nor omnia vanitas,
Stir up a little gladness
To lighten the Tibi cras;
Send us that little summer
That comes with Martinmas.

When still the cloudlet dapples
The windless cobalt-blue,
And the scent of gathered apples
Fills all the store-rooms through,
The gossamer silvers the bramble,
The lawns are gemmed with dew.

And end of tombstone Latinity,
Stir up with sober mirth,
Twenty-fifth after Trinity,
Kneel with the listening earth,
Behind the Advent trumpets
They are singing Emmanuel’s birth.

John Meade Falkner (1858–1922)

Chanson sans Paroles

In the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.

Is the wood’s deep heart,
And the fragrant pine,
Incense, and a shrine
Of her coming? Apart,
I wait for a sign.

What the sudden hush said,
She will hear, and forsake,
Swift, for my sake,
Her green, grassy bed:
She will hear and awake!

She will hearken and glide,
From her place of deep rest,
Dove-eyed, with the breast
Of a dove, to my side:
The pines bow their crest.

I wait for a sign:
The leaves to be waved,
The tall tree-tops laved
In a flood of sunshine,
This world to be saved!

In the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.

Ernest Dowson (1867–1900)

Prologue

My life is like a music hall
Where, in the impotence of rage,
Chained by enchantment to my stall,
I see myself upon the stage
Dance to amuse a music-hall.

‘Tis I that smoke this cigarette,
Lounge here, and laugh for vacancy,
And watch the dancers turn, and yet
It is my very self I see
Across the cloudy cigarette,

My very self that turns and trips,
Painted, pathetically gay,
An empty song upon the lips
In make-believe of holiday:
I, I this thing that turns and trips!

The light flares in the music hall,
The light, the sound, that weary us;
Hour follows hour, I count them all,
Lagging, and loud, and riotous:
My life is like a music-hall.

Arthur Symons (1865–1945)

Sweet Dancer

The girl goes dancing there
On the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth
Grass plot of the garden;
Escaped from bitter youth,
Escaped out of her crowd
Or out of her black cloud,
Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer!

If strange men come from the house
To lead her away, do not say
That she is happy being crazy;
Lead them gently astray;
Let her finish her dance,
Let her finish her dance.
Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer!

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)

Mishka

Mishka is poet among the beasts.
When roots are rotten, and rivers weep,
The bear is at play in the land of sleep.
Though his head be heavy between his fists,
The bear is poet among the beasts.

THE DREAM:

Wide and large are the monster’s eyes,
Nought saying, save one word alone:
Mishka! Mishka, as turned to stone,
Hears no word else, nor in anywise
Can see aught save the monster’s eyes.

Honey is under the monster’s lips;
And Mishka follows into her lair,
Dragged in the net of her yellow hair,
Knowing all things when honey drips
On his tongue like rain, the song of the hips

Of the honey-child, and of each twin mound.
Mishka! There screamed a far bird-note,
Deep in the sky, when round his throar
The triple coil of her hair she wound,
And stroked his limbs with a humming sound.

Mishka is white like a hunter’s son;
For he knows no more of the ancient south
When the honey-child’s lips are on his mouth,
When all her kisses are joined in one,
And his body is bathed in grass and sun.

The shadows lie mauven beneath the trees,
And purple stains where the finches pass,
Leap in the stalks of the deep, rank grass.
Flutter of wing, and the buzz of bees,
Deepen the silence, and sweeten ease.

The honey-child is an olive tree,
The voice of birds and the voice of flowers,
Each of them all and all the hours.
The honey-child is a wingèd bee,
Her touch is a perfume, a melody.

John Gray (1866–1934)

Il va neiger…

Il va neiger dans quelques jours. Je me souviens
de l’an dernier. Je m’en souviens de mes tristesses
au coin du feu. Si l’on m’avait demandé: qu’est-ce?
J’aurais dit: laissez-moi tranquille. ce n’est rien.

J’ai bien réfléchi, l’année avant, dans ma chambre,
pendant que la neige lourde tombait dehors.
J’ai réfléchi pour rien. A présent comme alors
je fume une pipe en bois avec un bout d’ambre.

Ma vieille commode en chêne sent toujours bien.
Mais moi, j’étais bête parce que ces choses
ne pouvaient pas changer et que c’est une pose
de vouloir chasser les choses que nous savons.

Pourquoi donc pensons-nous et parlons-nous? C’est drôle,
nos larmes et nos baisers, eux, ne parlent pas,
et cependant nous les comprenons, et les pas
d’un ami sont plus doux que de douces paroles.

On a baptisé les étoiles sans penser
qu’elles n’avaient pas besoin de nom et les nombres
qui preuvent que les belles comètes dans l’ombre
passeront, ne les forceront pas à passer.

Et maintenant même, ou sont les vieilles tristesses
de l’an dernier? A peine si je m’en souviens.
Je dirais: Laissez-moi tranquille, ce n’est rien,
si dans ma chambre on venait me demander: qu’est-ce?

Francis Jammes (1868–1938)

It’s going to snow…

It’s going to snow in a few days. I remember
the previous year. I remember my unhappiness
beside the fire. If someone had asked, ”What is it?”
I’d have said, “Don’t worry. It’s nothing.”

I thought a lot last year, up in my room,
while the heavy snow was falling outside.
Nothing came of it. Now, like then,
I smoke a wooden pipe with an amber mouthpiece.

My old oak chest-of-drawers always smells good.
But I was being stupid, because things
couldn’t change, and it’s make-believe
to want to drive away the things that we know.

So why do we think and talk? It’s curious;
our tears and our kisses, they don’t talk,
and we understand them all the same, and the footsteps
of a friend are sweeter than sweet words.

We’ve christened the stars without considering
that they’re not in need of names, and the numbers
that prove that the lovely comets out in the dark
will miss us, won’t make them pass by.

And even now, where are my old unhappinesses
from last year? I can hardly remember them.
I’d say, “Don’t worry. It’s nothing,”
if someone came to my room to ask, “What is it?”

Francis Jammes (1868–1938)
Tr. JF

J’aime dans les temps…

J’aime dans les temps Clara d’Ellébeuse,
l’écolière des anciens pensionnats,
qui allait, les soirs chauds, sous les tilleuls
lire les magazines d’autrefois.

Je n’aime qu’elle, et je sens sur mon coeur
la lumière bleue de sa gorge blanche.
Où est-elle? où était donc ce bonheur?
Dans sa chambre claire il entrait des branches.

Elle n’est peut-être pas encore morte
—ou peut-être que nous l’étions tous deux.
La grande cour avait des feuilles mortes
dans le vent froid des fins d’Eté trés vieux.

Te souviens-tu de ces plumes de paon,
dans un grand vase, auprès de coquillages?…
on apprenait qu’on avait fait naufrage,
on appelait Terre-Neuve: le Banc.

Viens, viens ma chère Clara d’Ellebeuse;
Aimions-nous encore, si tu existes.
Le vieux jardin a de vieilles tulipes.
Viens toute nue, ô Clara d’Ellebeuse.

Francis Jammes (1868–1938)

La jeune fille …

La jeune fille est blanche,
elle a des veines vertes
au poignets, dans sa manches
ouvertes.

On ne sait pas pourquoi
elle rit. Par moment
elle crie et cela
est perçant.

Est-ce qu’elle se doute
qu’elle vous prend le coeur
en cuillant sur la route
des fleurs?

On dirait quelquefois
qu’elle comprend des choses.
Par toujours. Elle cause
tout bas.

“Oh! ma chère! oh! là là…
…Figure-toi…mardi
je l’ai vu…j’ai rri.” Elle dit
comme ça.

Quand un jeume homme souffre,
d’abord elle se tait
et ne rit plus, tout
étonnée.

Dans les petits chemins
elle remplit ses mains
des piquants de bruyères,
de fougères.

Elle est grande, elle est blanche,
elle a des bras tres doux.
Elle est très droite et penche
le cou.

Francis Jammes (1868–1938)

The young girl…

The young girl is white,
she has blue veins
on her wrists, in her open
sleeves.

You don’t know why
she laughs. For a moment
she cries, and that
is piercing.

Is it that she doubts
that she captivates you
while picking flowers
along the road?

Sometimes you’d think
that she understands things.
Not always. She speaks
softly.

“Oh my dear! oh! la! la!
… Just imagine … Tuesday
I saw … I tried…” She talks
like that.

When a young man’s suffering,
at first she’s silent
and doesn’t laugh at all, quite
astonished.

On the back roads
she fills her hands
with prickly heather,
and ferns.

She’s tall, she’s fair-skinned,
she has very soft arms.
She stands straight and bends
her neck.

Francis Jammes (1868–1938)
Tr. JF

Requiescat

Your birds that call from tree to tree
Just overhead, and whirl and dart,
Your breeze fresh-blowing from the sea,
And your sea singing on, Sweetheart.

Your salt scent on the thin sharp air
Of this grey dawn’s first drowsy hours,
While on the grass shines everywhere
The yellow sunlight of your flowers.

At the road’s end your strip of blue
Beyond that line of naked trees—
Strange that we should remember you
As if you would remember these!

As if your spirit, swaying yet
To the old passions, were not free
Of Spring’s wild magic, and the fret
Of the wilder wooing of the sea!

What threat of old imaginings,
Half-haunted joy, enchanted pain,
Or dread of unfamiliar things
Should ever trouble you again?

Yet you would wake and want, you said,
The little whirr of wings, the clear
Gay notes, the wind, the golden bed
Of the daffodil: and they are here!

Just overhead, they whirl and dart
Your birds that call from tree to tree,
Your sea is singing on—Sweetheart,
Your breeze is blowing from the sea.

Beyond the line of naked trees
At the road’s end, your stretch of blue—
Strange if you should remember these
As we, ah! God! Remember you.

Charlotte Mew (1869–1928)

The Three Musicians

Along the path that skirts the wood,
The three musicians wend their way,
Pleased with their thoughts, each other’s mood,
Franz Himmel’s latest roundelay,
The morning’s work, a new-found theme, their breakfast and the summer day.

One’s a soprano, lightly decked
In cool white muslin that just shows
Her brown silk stockings gaily clocked,
Plump arms and elbows tipped with rose,
And frills of petticoats and things, and outlines as the warm wind blows.

Beside her a slim, gracious boy
Hastens to mend her tresses fall,
And dies her favour to enjoy,
And dies for réclame and recall
At Paris and St Petersburg, Vienna and St James’s Hall.

The third’s a Polish Pianist
With big engagements everywhere,
A light heart and an iron wrist,
And shocks and shoals of yellow hair,
And fingers that can trill on sixths and fill beginners with despair.

The three musicians stroll along
And pluck the ears of ripened corn,
Break into odds and ends of song,
And mock the woods with Siegfried’s horn,
And fill the air with Gluck, and fill the tweeded tourist’s soul with scorn.

The Polish genius lags behind,
And, with some poppies in his hand,
Picks out the strings and wood and wind
Of an imaginary band,
Enchanted that for once his men obey his beat and understand.

The charming cantatrice reclines
And rests a moment where she sees
Her château’s roof that hotly shines
Amid the dusky summer trees,
And fans herself, half shuts her eyes, and smoothes the frock about her knees.

The gracious boy is at her feet,
And weighs his courage with his chance;
His fears soon melt in noonday heat.
The tourist gives a furious glance,
Red as his guidebook grows, moves on, and offers up a prayer for France.

Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898)

The Most of It

He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder-broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter-love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff’s talus on the other side,
And then in the far distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush—and that was all.

Robert Frost (1874–1963)

[Mal-aimé]

Un soir de demi-brume à Londres
Un voyou qui ressemblait à
Mon amour vint à me rencontre
Et le regard qu’il me jeta
Me fit baisser les yeux de honte

Je suivi ce mauvais garçon
Qui sifflotait mains dans les poches
Nous semblion entre les maisons
Onde ouverte de la Mer Rouge
Lui les Hébreux moi Pharaon

Que tombent ces vagues de briques
Si tu ne fus pas bien aimée
Je suis le souverain d’Égypte
Sa soeur-épouse son armée
Si tu n’est pas l’amour unique

Au tournant d’une rue brûlant
De tous les feux de ses façades
Plaies du brouillard sanguinolent
Où se lamentaient les façades
Une femme lui ressemblant

C’était son regard d’inhumaine
Le cicatrice à son cou nu
Sortit saoule d’une taverne
Au moment où je reconnus
La fausseté de l’amour même

Lorsque il fut de retour enfin
Dans sa patrie le sage Ulysse
Son vieux chien de lui se souvint
Près d’un tapis de haute lisse
Sa femme attendait qu’il revint

L’époux royal de Sacontale
Las de vaincre se rejouit
Quand il la retrouve plus pâle
D’attente et d’amour yeux pâlis
Caressant sa gazelle mâle

J’ai pensé à ces rois heureux
Lorsque le faux amour et celle
Dont je suis encore amoureux
Heurtant leurs ombres infidèles
Me rendirent si malheureux

Regrets sur quoi l’enfer se fonde
Qu’un ciel d’ouli s’ouvre à me voeux
Pour son baiser les rois du monde
Seraient morts les pauvres fameux
Pour elle eussent vendu leur ombre

J’ai hiverné dans mon passé
Revienne le soleil de Pâques
Pour chauffer un coeur plus glacé
Que les quarante de Sébaste
Moins que ma vie martyrisés

Mon beau navire ô mon mémoire
Avons-nous assez navigué
Dans une onde mauvaise à boire
Avons-nous assez divagué
De la belle aube au triste soir

Adieu faux amour confondu
Avec la femme qui s’éloigne
Avec celle que j’ai perdue
L’année dernière en Allemagne
Et que je ne reverrai plus

Voie lactée ô soeur lumineuse
Des blancs ruisseaux de Chanaan
Et des corps blancs des amoureuses
Nageur morts suivrons-nous d’ahan
Ton cours vers d’autres nébuleuses

Je me souviens d’une autre année
C’etait l’aube d’un jour d’avril
J’ai chanté ma joie bien-aimée
Chanté l’amour à voix virile
Au moment d’amour de l’année

Aubade

C’est le printemps viens-t’en Pâquette
Te promener au bois joli
Les poules dans la cour caquètent
L’aube au ciel fait de roses plis
L’amour chemine a ta conquète

Mars et Vénus sont revenues
Ils s’embrassent à bouches folles
Devant des sites ingénus
Où sous les roses qui feuillolent
De beaux dieux roses dansent nus

Viens ma tendresse est la régente
De la floraison qui paraît
La nature est elle et touchante
Pan sifflote dans la forêt
Les grenouilles humides chantent

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)

[Ill-Beloved]

One London night in a half fog
A draggled boy accosted me
So like my love that when I felt
The glance that touched me from his eyes
I dropped my own in modesty

I followed this perverse kid as
He strolled along hands pocketed
And whistling The Red Sea ditch
With houses lining either side
I was Pharoah he the Jews

Let these brick waves wash down on me
If once I did not love you well
I am great Egypt’s sovereign lord
His sister-wife and all his host
If you are not my only love.

At the turn of a burning street each house-
front suppurated fiery wounds
Of mist and blood all the facades
In lamentation cried aloud
A woman who resembled him

I knew at once the inhuman eyes
The naked neck with the ragged scar
That came out staggering from some bar
The moment that I recognized
How great a cheat is love itself

When after many a weary year
Ulysses that good man reached home
His ancient dog remembered him
His wife was waiting for him near
A rug she’d woven thick and fine

The royal mate of Sacontale
Bored with his triumphs was well pleased
To find her with love-faded eyes
And face delay had made more pale
Petting her little male gazelle

I thought of those happy royalties
That night when love betraying and
She whom I loved and do love still
Beset me with their sleight of ghosts
Contriving my unhappiness

Hell’s built on such regrets as these
A Heav’n of forgetfulness revealed
For a kiss from her all the world’s kings
Would have gladly died poor famous things
And bartered their own shades willingly

I have been wintering in my past
O Easter sunlight come again
To warm a heart more frozen than
Sebastus’ was by forty such
My life has suffered briefer pangs

Fair ship O Memory have we two
Sailed long enough upon a sea
Too sour for drinking and gone astray
From sweet dawn to nagging night
Mindless heedless of our way

O false farewells O love involved
In her who takes her leave of me
The loved woman whom I lost
That last year in Germany
And whom I shall not again see

O Galaxy O luminous
Sister of the white Canaan rills
And the white flesh of girls in love
Shall we not swim in death along
That course toward systems further still

I call to mind another year
The dawning of an April day
I sung my darling pleasure I
Sang as a man sings of his love
In the love-rising of the year

Aubade

Spring’s come again Arise Pâquette
And walk with me in the pretty woods
The hens go cluck cluck in the yard
Dawn hangs the sky up in pink folds
Love’s on the march to take you dear

Mars and Venus have come back
To drink each other’s lips in love
There in the open where roses lean
Leafing shelteringly above
The naked dance of the rose gods

O come this is my love’s domain
The heavy flowers yield to love
Nature is all immediacy
Pan plays his woodland pipes again
The damp frogs have begun their song

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)
Tr. Dudley Fitts, from his translation of “La Chanson du Mal-Aimé”

The Mirabeau Bridge

Under the Mirabeau Bridge the Seine
Flows and our love
Must I be reminded again
How joy came always after pain

Night comes the hour is rung
The days go I remain

Hands within hands we stand face to face
While underneath
The bridge of our arms passes
The loose wave of our gazing which is endless

Night comes the hour is rung
The days go I remain

Love slips away like this water flowing
Love slips away
How slow life is in its going
And hope is so violent a thing

Night comes the hour is rung
The days go I remain

The days pass the weeks pass and are gone
Neither time that is gone
Nor love ever returns again
Under the Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine

Night comes the hour is rung
The days go I remain

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)
©Tr. W.S. Merwin

The Synagogue

Ottomar Scholem and Abraham Loewerin
On the Sabbath morning in their green felt hats
Walk to the synagogue along the Rhine
Past the slopes where the vines are reddening

They are arguing and yelling things one would hardly dare translate
Bastard conceived during a forbidden time or May the Devil poke your father
The old Rhine lifts his streaming face and turns away to smile
Ottomar Scholem and Abraham Loeweren are in a rage

Because during the Sabbath you can’t smoke
And Christians are passing by with their lit cigars
And because Ottomar and Abraham both love
Lia with her sheep’s eyes and a tummy that sticks out a little

Nevertheless in the synagogue one after the other
They’ll kiss the Torah while raising their fine hats
Among the foliage of the Feast of Tabernacles
Ottomar will smile at Abraham as they sing

They’ll lower the key freely and the sonorous male voices
Will make a Leviathan groan in the depths of the Rhine like a voice of autumn
And in the synagogue full of hats they’ll shake their four sacred switches
Hanoten ne Kamoth bagoim tholahoth baleoumim*

[*”He who wreaks vengeance on the Gentiles and punishment on peoples.”]

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)
Tr. JF

The Seasons/ Les Saisons

That was a great time we were on the beaches
Got there early in the morning barefoot and hatless
And quick as the flick of a toad’s tongue
Love skewered crazies just like it does the wise

Did you know Gui at the gallop
When he was in the army
Did you know Gui at the gallop
When he was a gunner
In the war

That was a great time The time of the baggage-master
We were packed together tighter than in a bus
And stars passed overhead singed by the shells
When the horse-drawn battery arrived at night

Did you know Gui at the gallop
When he was in the army
Did you know Gui at the gallop
When he was a gunner
In the war

That was a great time Days vague and nights vague
The big shells created scraps for our log dugouts
Some aluminum where you concentrated
On polishing until evening amazing rings

Did you know Gui at the gallop
When he was in the army
Did you know Gui at the gallop
When he was a gunner
In the war

That was a great time The war keeps going
The gun-crew have polished rings now for months
The leader listens in the shelter of the woods
To the repeated song of an unknown star

Did you know Gui at the gallop
When he was in the army
Did you know Gui at the gallop
When he was a gunner
In the war

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)
Tr. JF

A Bird is Singing

A bird is singing I don’t know where
I think it’s your soul that watches
Among all the tuppenny soldiers
And the bird charms my ear

Listen it’s singing tenderly
I don’t know on what branch
And everywhere it enchants me
Night and day weekdays and Sundays