The Sonnet

PURE form, that like some chalice of old time
Contain'st the liquid of the poet's thought
Within thy curving hollow, gem-enwrought
With interwoven traceries of rhyme,

While o'er thy brim the bubbling fancies climb,
What thing am I, that undismayed have sought
To pour my verse with trembling hand untaught
Into a shape so small yet so sublime?

Because perfection haunts the hearts of men,
Because thy sacred chalice gathered up
The wine of Petrarch, Shakspere, Shelley -- then

Receive these tears of failure as they drop
(Sole vintage of my life), since I am fain
To pour them in a consecrated cup.

"The Sonnet"

Edith Wharton

I Shall Not Care

WHEN I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.

"I Shall Not Care"

Sara Teasdale

Strings in the earth and air

Strings in the earth and air

Make music sweet;

Strings by the river where

The willows meet.

There's music along the river

For Love wanders there,

Pale flowers on his mantle,

Dark leaves on his hair.

All softly playing,

With head to the music bent,

And fingers straying

Upon an instrument.

"Strings in the earth and air"

James Joyce

Over the Hills

Over the hills and the valleys of dreaming
Slowly I take my way.
Life is the night with its dream-visions teeming,
Death is the waking at day.

Down thro' the dales and the bowers of loving,
Singing, I roam afar.
Daytime or night-time, I constantly roving,—
Dearest one, thou art my star.

"Over the Hills"

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Auguries of Innocence

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

(...)

A truth that's told with bad intent.
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro' the World we safely go.
Joy and Woe are woven fine,
A Clothing for the Soul divine;

(...)

He who mocks the Infant's Faith
Shall be mock'd in Age and Death.
He who shall teach the Child to Doubt
The rotting Grave shall ne'er get out.
He who respects the Infant's faith
Triumphs over Hell and Death.
The Child's Toys and the Old Man's Reasons
Are the Fruits of the Two seasons.
The Questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to Reply.
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out.
The Strongest Poison ever known
Came from Caesar's Laurel Crown.

(...)

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro' the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light.
God Appears and God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night,
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day.

Fragments from "Auguries of Innocence"

William Blake

Bright be the place of thy soul

I
Bright be the place of thy soul!
No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal control,
In the orbs of the blessed to shine.
On earth thou wert all but divine,
As thy soul shall immortally be;
And our sorrow may cease to repine
When we know that thy God is with thee.
When we know that thy God is with thee.
Bright be the place of thy soul,
No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal control,
In the orbs of the blessed to shine.

II
Light be the turf of thy tomb!
May its verdure like emeralds be!
There should not be the shadow of gloom,
In ought that reminds us of thee.
Young flow'rs and an evergreen tree,
May grow o'er the spot of thy rest.
But nor cypress nor Yew let us see,
For why should we mourn for the blest?
For why should we mourn for the blest?
Bright be the place of thy soul,
No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal control,
In the orbs of the blessed to shine.

"Bright be the place of thy soul"

George Gordon Byron

Look back on Time, with kindly eyes —

Look back on Time, with kindly eyes —
He doubtless did his best —
How softly sinks that trembling sun
In Human Nature's West —

"Look back on Time, with kindly eyes —"

Emily Dickinson

Stars

How countlessly they congregate
O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!--

As if with keenness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,--

And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those stars like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.

"Stars"

Robert Frost

Apologia

Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?

Is it thy will---Love that I love so well---
That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?

Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell ambition at the common mart,
And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.

Perchance it may be better so---at least
I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.

Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the soul that should be free,
Trodden the dusty road of common sense,
While all the forest sang of liberty.

Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight
Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air,
To where the steep untrodden mountain height
Caught the last tresses of the Sun God's hair.

Or how the little flower he trod upon,
The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold,
Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun
Content if once its leaves were aureoled.

But surely it is something to have been
The best beloved for a little while,
To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen
His purple wings flit once across thy smile.

Ay! though the gorged asp of passion feed
On my boy's heart, yet have I burst the bars,
Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed
The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!

"Apologia"

Oscar Wilde

Sonnet 18

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 dimm'd,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st 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.

"Sonnet 18"

William Shakespeare

Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English writer that was born in London in 1343. By that time, English was not an unified language as we know today. There were several dialects spread throughout the country. Chaucer wrote in what now we know as Middle English, a merging of the dialects used in London, Kent and Midland. This is one of his poems:

Original text:

Ma dame ye ben of Al Beaute ſhryne
As fer As cercled is the mapamonde
For As the cristall glorious ye ſhyne
And lyke Ruby ben your chekys rounde
Therwyth ye ben ſo mery and ſo iocunde
That At A Reuell whan that I ſe you dance
It is an oynement vnto my wounde
Thoght ye to me ne do no daliance.

For thogh I wepe of teres ful A tyne
Yet may that wo myn herte nat confounde
Your ſemy voys that ye ſo ſmall out twyne
Makyth my thoght in ioy And blys habounde
So curtayſly I go wyth love bounde
That to my ſelf I ſey in my penaunce
Suffyſeth me to loue you Rosemounde
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce.

Nas never pyk walwed in galauntyne
As I in love Am walwed And I wounde
For whych ful ofte I of my ſelf devyne
That I Am trew Tristam the ſecunde
My love may not refreyde nor affound
I brenne Ay in an Amorouſe pleſaunce
Do what you lyſt I wyl your thral be founde
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliance.

tregentil,————//————Chaucer

Modern English "translation"

Madame, you are a shrine of all beauty,
As far encircling as the map of the world.
For you shine as the glorious crystal,
And your round cheeks are like Ruby.
Therewith you are so merry and so jocund,
That at a revel when that I see you dance;
It is an ointment unto my wound,
Though you, to me, do no dalliance.

For though I weep a basin of tears,
Yet may that woe not confound my heart.
Your seemly voice that you so delicately bring forth,
Make my thoughts, in joy and bliss, abound.
So courteously I go, with love bound
That, to myself, I say in my penance,
"Suffer me to love you Rosemounde;
Though you, to me, do no dalliance".

Never was pike so imbued in galantine
As I in love, am imbued and wounded.
For which I very oft, of myself, deign
That I am true Tristam the Second.
My love may not be cooled nor sunk,
I burn in an amourous pleasance.
Do what you like, I bid you find your thrall
Though you, to me, do no dalliance.

very gently,————//————Chaucer

"Balade to Rosemounde"

Geoffrey Chaucer

Fact and Fancy

How dull the wretch, whose philosophic mind
Disdains the pleasures of fantastic kind;
Whose prosy thoughts the joys of life exclude,
And wreck the solace of the poet's mood!
Young Zeno, practis'd in the Stoic's art,
Rejects the language of the glowing heart;
Dissolves sweet Nature to a mess of laws;
Condemns th' effect whilst looking for the cause;
Freezes poor Ovid in an iced review,
And sneers because his fables are untrue!
In search of hope the hopeful zealot goes,
But all the sadder tums, the more he knows!
Stay! Vandal sophist, whose deep lore would blast
The grateful legends of the storied past;
Whose tongue in censure flays th' embellish'd page,
And scorns the comforts of a dreary age:
Wouldst strip the foliage from the vital bough
Till all men grow as wisely dull as thou?
Happy the man whose fresh, untainted eye
Discerns a Pantheon in the spangled sky;
Finds sylphs and dryads in the waving trees,
And spies soft Notus in the southern breeze
For whom the stream a cheering carol sings,
While reedy music by the fountain rings;
To whom the waves a Nereid tale confide
Till friendly presence fills the rising tide.
Happy is he, who void of learning's woes,
Th' ethereal life of bodied Nature knows;
I scorn the sage that tells me it but seems,
And flout his gravity in sunlight dreams!

"Fact and Fancy"

Howard Phillips Lovecraft

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow—

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand—

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep—while I weep

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

"A Dream Within a Dream"

Edgar Allan Poe

Explaining...

I'd like to post the first part of the poem that inspired the name of this blog. There it is, the first part of "The Hollow Man" by T. S. Eliot:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voice, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar.

Shape without form, shade without collour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
as the hollow men
the stuffed men.

Future?

To live in a world without books! The Horror! The unbearable weight of reality!

Maybe not. To be completely fooled by the government and to believe only what the television told you. Only the virtual family is real! Always running! No time to think! No books to read, No thoughts to think! The dream country of those who seek alienation from reality.

Would you fancy living in a world where somebody else would think for you?

Beauty

As for what he says about beauty, Joyce make use of an old definition creeated by Thomas Aquinas, translating from latin as 'Three things are needed for beauty, wholeness, harmony and radiance'. When he talks about wholeness, the author means the need for the observer to define what is the objected that he is analysing and ignore everything else, you must notice it as a whole. Harmony is seen when the artist perceive all the parts that form the whole observed before, with each tiny structure and how these little pieces connect with each other to compose the object. The third element of beauty is also the most complex to understand and define. Radiance is the artist's way to understand the object, how it is reflected on his mind, imprinted on his soul. This can only be obtained when the observer clearly sees the two previous elements of beauty on the object, meaning that the artist need to understand both the whole as he perceive it's harmony.

Art

James Joyce brings us a marvelous description of art and beauty. First he try to set a limit to how an art form should be observed, saying that ‘(...) to try slowly and humbly and constantly to express to press out again, from the gross earth or what it brings forth, from sound and shape and colour which are the prison gates of our soul, an image of beauty we have to come to understand (...)’. We have to observe that with this definition he makes us see Art as a representation of Beauty in forms that can be perceived by anyone, not only the artist himself.

He does so artisticaly, using the expression ‘from the gross earth’, as did God when He “formed man of the dust of the ground”.

The Blue

You can't always run away from your past. You have to face it and, sometimes, try to fix it. Maybe it won't do a thing to change the present, but it will change you, and that's the whole point.

The time flows in my diferent ways. The most complex is how it drags you on and on, endlessly, changing you deep inside. This is the way we grow. Change yourself, change your surroundings, change the world. We always try to leave our mark in this world. However... does it really matters?

As I perceive, what really matters is how you change over the time, if you master the way it tries to change you and, instead of running against the current, change the current itself. No! Of course I'm not trying to say that I'm a time-traveler or something like that. I'm just trying to say that we can decide and control the efects that time has over your life.

Trying to change how time affects you life is hard. But we have to try.

Make amends to the Past.
Enjoy the Present.
The Future? Well... let the future become the Present...

Scars of Time

When do we really depart from this world? Our ghosts survive our death for a long time. Maybe in shape of a photograph, a memo you wrote for you to remember to go to a meeting, which you'll never be able to go, or even a memory in somebody else's mind...

Can you face Oblivion? I certainly can't...

Can you defy Oblivion? I'll try...

Not the Same

There are times in one's life that one notices that it is, in fact, changing.

It's something strange, bizarre, ghastly, yet very comfortable. You can feel the world turning under your feet. You know that everything is in motion.

For good or for ill, nothing stays the same for too long...