Look around the room… and I want you all to understand that there are forces all around you who wish to exploit division, rob you of your freedom, and tell you what to think. They are afraid of change…some of these forces are even within you. But I’m here to tell you, when young folks are motivated to action, when they act with insight, soul and fire, they can rekindle the weary spirit of a slumbering nation. It’s time somebody woke us up.
This onion-dome holds all intricacies
Of intellect and star-struck wisdom; so
Like Coleridge’s head with multitudinous
Passages riddled, full of strange instruments
Unbalanced by a touch, this organism
From wires and dials spins introverted life.
It never looks, squat on its concrete shoulders,
Down at the river’s swarming life, nor sees
Cranes’ groping insect-like activity
Nor slow procession of funnels past the docks.
Turning its inner wheels, absorbed in problems
Of space and time, it never hears
Birds singing in the park or children’s laughter.
Alive, but in another way it broods
On this its Highgate, hypnotised
In lunar reverie and calculation.
Yet night awakes it; blind lids open
Leaden to look upon the moon:
A single goggling telescopic eye
Enfolds the spheric wonder of the sky.
Who died on the wires, and hung there, one of two —
Who for his hours of life had chattered through
Infinite lovely chatter of Bucks accent:
Yet faced unbroken wires; stepped over, and went
A noble fool, faithful to his stripes— and ended.
But I weak, hungry, and willing only for the chance
Of line — to fight in the line, lay down under unbroken
Wires, and saw the flashes and kept unshaken,
Till the politest voice — a finicking accent, said:
‘Do you think you might crawl through there: there's a hole.'
Darkness, shot at: I smiled, as politely replied —
‘I'm afraid not, Sir.' There was no hole no way to be seen
Nothing but chance of death, after tearing of clothes.
Kept flat, and watched the darkness, hearing bullets whizzing —-
And thought of music — and swore deep heart's oaths
(Polite to God) and retreated and came on again,
Again retreated — a second time faced the screen.
The body,
Eternal Shadow of the finite Soul,
The Soul's self-symbol, its image of itself.
Its own yet not itself—
The shadowy boy of night
Crosses the dusking land;
He sows his poppy-seeds
With steady, gentle hand.
The shadowy boy of night
Young husbandman of dreams,
Garners his gracious blooms
By far and moonlit streams.
The almond tree,—the almond tree—how lovely is its bloom,
It flourishes and fades away before the summer noon;
Alas! it is the symbol sad of beauty's young decay,
The flower of life whose early glow will quickly pass away.
Oh! cherish it—oh! cherish it—and drink its perfum'd breath,
And bind it round thy forehead fair, ere yet it droop in death;
Soon will its leaves forsake the stem, tho' gathered by the Hours,
And, like our pleasures, day by day, lose all its short-lived flow'rs.
Yes! we will taste thine odorous sweets thus swiftly wafted by,
And claim from Zephyrus thy tear—thy fondest, latest sigh,
Drain from the laughing chalices the honied nectar there;
Oh! why should death and pale decay e'er blight a thing so fair?
Like morning flower or vision bright is beauty's shortlived bloom,
It vanishes before the sun proclaims the hour of noon;
Night closes in, and like a tomb it veils the beauteous form,
And on the morrow brighter flowers the hills and vales adorn.
The wings of Time untired sail on, and cheeks are waxing pale,
And all the days are vanishing and spring begins to fail;
And every flower the soft wind fans, speaks thus and seems to say—
“Oh! hasten to enjoy us ere we—we—too fade away.”
And since they must—the beautiful—droop o'er their common urn,
And perish from the bright blue sky, no, never to return,
Spare—spare, oh! spare the bulbul's flower—his song be heard above,
And may the rose for ever bloom beneath the lips of love.
Each human being has the eternal duty of transforming what is hard and brutal into a subtle and tender offering, what is crude into refinement, what is ugly into beauty, ignorance into knowledge, confrontation into collaboration, thereby rediscovering the child’s dream of a creative reality incessantly renewed by death, the servant of life, and by life the servant of love.
Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.
I cry aloud with all my people's mouths,
our land is smitten by a plague of fear and lead,
our land is shadowed by the gallows tree
our land a common graveyard, huge with dead.
Who'll come to help? Right here, at present, now!
Because the patient's weak, has lost his hold.
But, like the call of birds, my shouting fades
in emptiness: the world is arrogant and cold.
The sighing of the old, the baby's cry —
do they all run to sand, illusion, fail?
Men, women groan like wounded deer
to those in power all this is just a fairy-tale.
Dark is the world's eye, its ear is deaf,
the powerful lost in madness or stupidity.
Compassion's only felt by those whom suffering breaks,
and sufferers alone have hearts like you and me
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Purple —is fashionable twice—
This season of the year,
And when a soul perceives itself
To be an Emperor.
Oppressive heat
My whirling mind
Listens to the peals of thunder.
I try to live each day
In such a way
That when tomorrow makes today a yesterday
I will have woven into the fabric of my life
Some gay design,
Some patch of color,
Bright, to please the eye.
So that, in the graying years to come,
When all the quick responsive senses dull,
I may look back across the patterns of my past
And, in my memory,
Live the joys and pains
Of all my yesterdays.
Fate is never too generous, even to its favorites. Rarely do the gods grant a mortal more than one immortal deed.
The Judge is like the Owl—
I've heard my Father tell—
And Owls do build in Oaks—
So here's an Amber Sill—
That slanted in my Path—
When going to the Barn—
And if it serve You for a House—
Itself is not in vain—
About the price —'tis small—
I only ask a Tune
At Midnight —Let the Owl select
His favorite Refrain.
More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.
I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.
As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.
I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.
I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,
That's how you're love by me.
O Child beside the Waterfall
what songs without a word
rise from those waters like the call
only a heart has heard-
the Joy, the Joy in all things
rise whistling like a bird.
O Child beside the Waterfall
I hear them too, the brief
heavenly notes, the harp of dawn,
the nightingale on the leaf,
all, all dispel the darkness and
the silence of our grief.
O Child beside the Waterfall
I see you standing there
with waterdrops and fireflies
and hummingbirds in the air,
all singing praise of paradise,
paradise everywhere.
[...]
Struggling, and yet for strife unmeet,
True type of trustful love thou art;
Thou liest the whole year at my feet,
To live but one day at my heart.
One day of festal pride to lie
Upon the loved one's heart—what more?
Upon the loved one's heart to die,
O shamrock of the Irish shore!
And shall I not return thy love?
And shalt thou not, as thou shouldst, be
Placed on thy son's proud heart above
The red rose or the fleur-de-lis?
Yes, from these heights the waters beat,
I vow to press thy cheek once more,
And lie for ever at thy feet,
O shamrock of the Irish shore!
[...]
Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief;
What now is bud wilt soon be leaf,
What now is leaf will soon decay;
The wind blows east, the wind blows west;
The blue eyes in the robin's nest
Will soon have wings and beak and breast,
And flutter and fly away.
[...]
On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A Fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through fields under their umbrellas
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet,
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world there will be,
No other end of the world there will be.
[...]
We live, while we see the sun,
Where life and dreams are as one;
And living has taught me this,
Man dreams the life that is his,
Until his living is done.
The king dreams he is king, and he lives
In the deceit of a king,
Commanding and governing;
And all the praise he receives
Is written in wind, and leaves
A little dust on the way
When death ends all with a breath.
Where then is the gain of a throne,
That shall perish and not be known
In the other dream that is death?
Dreams the rich man of riches and fears,
The fears that his riches breed;
The poor man dreams of his need,
And all his sorrows and tears;
Dreams he that prospers with years,
Dreams he that feigns and foregoes,
Dreams he that rails on his foes;
And in all the world, I see,
Man dreams whatever he be,
And his own dream no man knows.
And I too dream and behold,
I dream I am bound with chains,
And I dreamed that these present pains
Were fortunate ways of old.
What is life? a tale that is told;
What is life? a frenzy extreme,
A shadow of things that seem;
And the greatest good is but small,
That all life is a dream to all,
And that dreams themselves are a dream.
[...]
[...]
Es verdad; pues reprimamos
esta fiera condición,
esta furia, esta ambición,
por si alguna vez soñamos;
y sí haremos, pues estamos
en mundo tan singular,
que el vivir sólo es soñar;
y la experiencia me enseña
que el hombre que vive, sueña
lo que es, hasta despertar.
Sueña el rey que es rey, y vive
con este engaño mandando,
disponiendo y gobernando;
y este aplauso, que recibe
prestado, en el viento escribe,
y en cenizas le convierte
la muerte, ¡desdicha fuerte!
¿Que hay quien intente reinar,
viendo que ha de despertar
en el sueño de la muerte!
Sueña el rico en su riqueza,
que más cuidados le ofrece;
sueña el pobre que padece
su miseria y su pobreza;
sueña el que a medrar empieza,
sueña el que afana y pretende,
sueña el que agravia y ofende,
y en el mundo, en conclusión,
todos sueñan lo que son,
aunque ninguno lo entiende.
Yo sueño que estoy aquí
de estas prisiones cargado,
y soñé que en otro estado
más lisonjero me vi.
¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.
¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción,
y el mayor bien es pequeño;
que toda la vida es sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son.
[...]
To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and disputed against it.
Many a year has fled away
Since this old palette was new,
As may be seen by the spots of green
And yellow and red and blue.
Many a picture was painted from this,
While many were only dreamed;
And shadow and light like the black and white
Across my life have streamed.
Accept, my friend, this plain old board
All plastered and imbrowned,
Where the pleasure and strife of a painter's life
Have left a mosaic ground.
The color that went to the picture's soul
Has left but its body behind;
Yet strive to trace on its cloudy face
Some gleam of the artist's mind.
I have been watching the war map slammed up for
advertising in front of the newspaper office.
Buttons—red and yellow buttons—blue and black buttons—
are shoved back and forth across the map.
A laughing young man, sunny with freckles,
Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd,
And then fixes a yellow button one inch west
And follows the yellow button with a black button one
inch west.
(Ten thousand men and boys twist on their bodies in
a red soak along a river edge,
Gasping of wounds, calling for water, some rattling
death in their throats.)
Who would guess what it cost to move two buttons one
inch on the war map here in front of the newspaper
office where the freckle-faced young man is laughing
to us?
More serpents lie under the ash of Yggdrasill
than any fool can imagine:
Goin and Moin, they are Grafvitnir's sons,
Grabak and Grafvollud,
Ofnir and Svafnir I think forever will
bite on the tree's branches.
I'm looking through a hole in the sky
I'm seeing nowhere through the eyes of a lie
I'm getting closer to the end of the line
I'm living easy where the sun doesn't shine
I'm living in a room without any view
I'm living freely because the rent's never due
The synonyms of all the things that I've said
Are just the riddles that are built in my head
Hole in the sky, take me to heaven
Window in time, through it I fly
I've seen the stars disappear in the sun
The shooting's easy if you've got the right gun
And even though I'm sitting waiting for Mars
I don't believe there's any future in cause
Hole in the sky, take me to heaven
Window in time, through it I fly
I've watched the dogs of war enjoying their feast
I've seen the western world go down in the east
The food of love became the greed of our time
But now I'm living on the profits of crime
I would be dismal with all the fine pearls of the crown of a king;
But I can talk plainly to you, you little blue flower of the Spring!
Here in the heart of September the world that I walk in is full
Of the hot happy sound of the shearing, the rude heavy scent of the wool.
Soon would I tire of all riches or honours or power that they fling;
But you are my own, of my own folk, you little blue flower of the Spring!
I was around by the cherries to-day; all the cherries are pale:
The world is a woman in velvet: the air is the colour of ale.
I would be dismal with all the fine pearls of the crown of a king;
But I can give love-talk to you, you little blue flower of the Spring!
