Sonnet 18. William Shakespeare

Transcription

1 Sonnet 18 William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed. But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 1

2 Horses Graze Gwendolyn Brooks Cows graze. Horses graze. They eat eat eat. Their graceful heads are bowed bowed bowed in majestic oblivion. They are nobly oblivious to your follies, your inflation, the knocks and nettles of administration. They eat eat eat. And the crest of their brute satisfaction, with wonderful gentleness, in affirmation, they lift their clean calm eyes and they lie down and love the world. They speak with their companions. They do not wish that they were otherwhere. Perhaps they know the creature feet may press only a few earth inches at a time, that earth is anywhere earth, that an eye may see, wherever it may be, the Immediate arc, alone, of life, of love. In Sweden, China, Afrika, in India or Mane the animals are sane; they know and know and know there s ground below and sky up high. 2

3 Dream Boogie Langston Hughes Good morning, daddy! Ain t you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Listen closely: You ll hear their feet Beating out and beating out a- Listen to it closely: Ain t you heard something underneath like a Sure, I m happy! Take it away! You think It s a happy beat? What did I say? Hey, pop! Re-bop! Mop! Y-e-a-h! 3

4 miss rosie Lucille Clifton when i watch you wrapped up like garbage sitting, surrounded by the smell of too old potato peels or when i watch you in your old man's shoes with the little toe cut out sitting, waiting for your mind like next week's grocery i say when i watch you you wet brown bag of a woman who used to be the best looking gal in Georgia used to be called the Georgia Rose i stand up through your destruction i stand up 4

5 Three Haiku Matsuo Bashō Translated by Robert Hass It would melt in my handthe autumn frost. First day of spring I keep thinking about the end of autumn. Spring! A nameless hill in the haze Raizan You rice-field maidens! The only things not muddy Are the songs you sing Two Tanka Lady Ise Translated by Willis Barnstone Hanging from the branches of a green willow tree, the spring rain is a thread of pearls. Translated by Etsuko Terasaki With Irma Brandeis Lightly forsaking the Spring mist as it rises, the wild geese are setting off. Have they learned to live in a flowerless country? 5

6 Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on that sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 6

7 The Queen Pablo Neruda Translated by Donald D. Walsh I have named you queen. There are taller ones than you, taller. There are purer ones that you, purer. There are lovelier than you, lovelier. But you are the queen. When you go through the streets no one recognizes you. No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks at the carpet of red gold that you tread as you pass, the nonexistent carpet. And when you appear all the rivers sound in my body, bells shake in the sky, and a hymn fills the world. Only you and I, only you and I, my love, listen to it. 7

8 I Am Offering This Poem Jimmy Santiago Baca I am offering this poem to you, since I have nothing else to give. Keep it like a warm coat, when winter comes to cover you, or like a pair of thick socks the cold cannot bite through, I love you, I have nothing else to give you, so it is a pot full of yellow corn to warm your belly in the winter, it is a scarf for your head, to wear over your hair, to tie up around your face, I love you, Keep it, treasure it as you would if you were lost, needing direction, in the wilderness life becomes when mature; and in the corner of your drawer, tucked away like a cabin or a hogan in dense trees, come knocking, and I will answer, give you directions, and let you warm yourself by this fire, rest by this fire, and make you feel safe, I love you, It's all I have to give, and it's all anyone needs to live, and to go on living inside, when the world outside no longer cares if you live or die; remember, I love you. 8

9 After Apple-Picking Robert Frost My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of glass I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough And held against the world of hoary grass. It melted, and I let it fall and break. But I was well Upon my way to sleep before it fell, And I could tell What form my dreaming was about to take. Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end, And every fleck of russet showing dear. My instep arch not only keeps the ache, It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in. For I have had too much Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired. There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. For all That struck the earth, No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, Went surely to the cider-apple heap As of no worth. One can see what will trouble This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it's like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep. Fire and Ice Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favour fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. 9

10 After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes Emily Dickinson After great pain, a formal feeling comes -- The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -- The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, And Yesterday, or Centuries before? The Feet, mechanical, go round -- Of Ground, or Air, or Ought -- A Wooden way Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone -- This is the Hour of Lead -- Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow -- First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go -- Heart! We will forget him! Emily Dickinson Heart! We will forget him! You and I -- tonight! You may forget the warmth he gave -- I will forget the light! When you have done, pray tell me That I may straight begin! Haste! lest while you're lagging I remember him! 10

11 since feeling is first e. e. cummings since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you; wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world my blood approves, and kisses are a better fate than wisdom lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry - the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids' flutter which says we are for each other; then laugh, leaning back in my arms for life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis 11