Sombre the night is.
And though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lies there.

Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
This poison-blasted track opens on our camp -
On a little safe sleep.

But hark! joy – joy – strange joy.
Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks.
Music showering our upturned list’ning faces.

Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song -
But song only dropped,
Like a blind man’s dreams on the sand
By dangerous tides,
Like a girl’s dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.

daryl

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By Alexander Pushkin

Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I’ve known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.
But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, ‘When we meet again,
in the shadow of olive-trees,
we shall kiss, in a love without pain,
under cloudless infinities.’
But there, alas, where the sky
shines with blue radiance,
where olive-tree shadows lie
on the waters glittering dance,
your beauty, your suffering,
are lost in eternity.
But the sweet kiss of our meeting …
I wait for it: you owe it me …

daryl

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Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.

daryl

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“And then, just to show them, I’ll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an IT-KUTCH a PREEP and a PROO a NERKLE a NERD and a SEERSUCKER, too”

“It’s a pretty good zoo,” said young Gerald McGrew, “and the fellow who runs it seems proud of it, too.” But if Gerald ran the zoo, the New Zoo, McGrew Zoo, he’d see to making a change or two: “So I’d open each cage. I’d unlock every pen, let the animals go, and start over again.”

And that’s just what Gerald imagines, as he travels the world in this playfully collecting all sorts of beasts “that you don’t see every day.” From the mountains of Zombama- Tant to the blistering sands of the Desert of Zind,

Gerald hunts down every animal imaginable (“I’ll catch ‘em in countries no one can spell, like the country of Motta-fa-Potta-fa-Pell”). Whether it’s a scraggle-foot Mulligatawny or a wild-haired Iota (from “the far western part of south-east North Dakota”),

Gerald amazes the world with his new and improved zoo: “This Zoo Keeper, New Keeper’s simply astounding! He travels so far that you think he would drop! When do you suppose this young fellow will stop?” But Gerald’s weird and wonderful globe-trotting safari doesn’t end a moment too soon: “young McGrew’s made his mark. He’s built a zoo better than Noah’s whole Ark!.”

“I’ll hunt in the mountains of Zomba-ma-Tant/ With helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant,/ And capture a fine fluffy bird called the Bustard/ Who only eats custard with sauce made of mustard.”

daryl

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By Kahlil Gibran

The tempest calmed after bending the branches of the trees and leaning heavily upon the grain in the field. The stars appeared as broken remnants of lightning, but now silence prevailed over all, as if Nature’s war had never been fought.

At that hour a young woman entered her chamber and knelt by her bed sobbing bitterly. Her heart flamed with agony but she could finally open her lips and say, “Oh Lord, bring him home safely to me. I have exhausted my tears and can offer no more, oh Lord, full of love and mercy. My patience is drained and calamity is seeking possession of my heart. Save him, oh Lord, from the iron paws of War; deliver him from such unmerciful Death, for he is weak, governed by the strong. Oh Lord, save my beloved, who is Thine own son, from the foe, who is Thy foe. Keep him from the forced pathway to Death’s door; let him see me, or come and take me to him.”

Quietly a young man entered. His head was wrapped in bandage soaked with escaping life.

He approached he with a greeting of tears and laughter, then took her hand and placed against it his flaming lips. And with a voice with bespoke past sorrow, and joy of union, and uncertainty of her reaction, he said, “Fear me not, for I am the object of your plea. Be glad, for Peace has carried me back safely to you, and humanity has restored what greed essayed to take from us. Be not sad, but smile, my beloved. Do not express bewilderment, for Love has power that dispels Death; charm that conquers the enemy. I am your one. Think me not a specter emerging from the House of Death to visit your Home of Beauty.

“Do not be frightened, for I am now Truth, spared from swords and fire to reveal to the people the triumph of Love over War. I am Word uttering introduction to the play of happiness and peace.”

Then the young man became speechless and his tears spoke the language of the heart; and the angels of Joy hovered about that dwelling, and the two hearts restored the singleness which had been taken from them.

At dawn the two stood in the middle of the field contemplating the beauty of Nature injured by the tempest. After a deep and comforting silence, the soldier said to his sweetheart, “Look at the Darkness, giving birth to the Sun.”

daryl

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By Mary Oliver

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,

A quiet house, some green and modest acres

A little way from every troubling town,

A little way from factories, schools, laments.

I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,

With only streams and birds for company.

To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.

And then it came to me, that so was death,

A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,

But let it go. Homesick for moderation,

Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.

If any find solution, let him tell it.

Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation

Where, as the times implore our true involvement,

The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.

Who ever made music of a mild day?

Joanne Lewis

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By Ben Jonson

Rhyme, the rack of finest wits,

That expresseth but by fits True conceit,

Spoiling senses of their treasure,

Cozening judgment with a measure,

But false weight;

Wresting words from their true calling,

Propping verse for fear of falling To the ground;

Jointing syllabes, drowning letters,

Fast’ning vowels as with fetters They were bound!

Soon as lazy thou wert known,

All good poetry hence was flown,

And art banish’d.

For a thousand years together All Parnassus’ green did wither,

And wit vanish’d.

Pegasus did fly away,

At the wells no Muse did stay,

But bewail’d So to see the fountain dry,

And Apollo’s music die,

All light failed!

Starveling rhymes did fill the stage;

Not a poet in an age Worth crowning;

Not a work deserving bays,

Not a line deserving praise,

Pallas frowning;

Greek was free from rhyme’s infection,

Happy Greek by this protection Was not spoiled.

Whilst the Latin, queen of tongues,

Is not yet free from rhyme’s wrongs,

But rests foiled.

Scarce the hill again doth flourish,

Scarce the world a wit doth nourish To restore Phoebus to his crown again,

And the Muses to their brain,

As before.

Vulgar languages that want Words and sweetness,

and be scant Of true measure,

Tyrant rhyme hath so abused,

That they long since have refused Other cæsure.

He that first invented thee,

May his joints tormented be,

Cramp’d forever.

Still may syllabes jar with time,

Still may reason war with rhyme,

Resting never.

May his sense when it would meet The cold tumor in his feet,

Grow unsounder;

And his title be long fool,

That in rearing such a school was the founder.

George Thomas

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By Roald Dahl

Come with me and you’ll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you’ll see
Into your imagination
We’ll begin with a spin
Trav’ling in the world of my creation
What we’ll see will defy
Explanation?
If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world, there’s nothing to it
There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you’ll be free
If you truly wish to be?
There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you’ll be free
If you truly wish to be

Joanne Lewis

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By Wislawa Szymborska

Write it. Write. In ordinary ink

on ordinary paper: they were given no food,

they all died of hunger. “All. How many?

It’s a big meadow. How much grass for each one?”

Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers.

A thousand and one remains a thousand,

as though the one had never existed: an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle,

an ABC never read, air that laughs, cries, grows, emptiness

running down steps toward the garden, nobody’s place in the line.

We stand in the meadow where it became flesh, and the meadow is silent as a false witness.

Sunny. Green. Nearby, a forest with wood for chewing and

water under the barkevery day a full ration of the view until you go blind.

Overhead, a birdthe shadow of its life-giving wings brushed their lips.

Their jaws opened. Teeth clacked against teeth.

At night, the sickle moon shone in the sky and reaped wheat for their bread.

Hands came floating from blackened icons, empty cups in their fingers.

On a spit of barbed wire, a man was turning. They sang with their mouths full of earth.

“A lovely song of how war strikes straight at the heart.”

Write: how silent. “Yes.”

daryl

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