Poem

(Foto by Antonio Carlos Januário - MG - Brazil)

Of that Heaven which is above the heavens what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily? It is such as I will describe; for I must dare to speak the truth, when Truth is my theme. There abides the very Being with which true knowledge is concerned; the colorless, formless, intangible Essence visible only to mind, the pilot of the soul. ... Every soul which is capable of receiving the food proper to it rejoices at beholding Reality. ... She beholds Knowledge absolute, not in the form of generation or of relation, which men call existence, but Knowledge absolute in Existence absolute.


Poem / quote n° 3640 : Plato, (Athènes, 427 — id., 347 av. J.-C.), Classical Greek philosopher, founder of the Academy in Athens., Philosophy / Platonism
Source : Phaedrus, 247C-E; Jowett

LOVE ASLEEP

We reached the grove's deep shadow and there found
Cythera's son in sleep's sweet fetters bound;
Looking like ruddy apples on their tree;
No quiver and no bended bow had he;
These were suspended on a leafy spray.
Himself in cups of roses cradled lay,
Smiling in sleep; while from their flight in air,
The brown bees to his soft lips made repair,
To ply their waxen task and leave their honey there.

Poems attributed to the Greek philosopher, Plato.


This English translation, by Lord Neaves, of "Love Asleep" is reprinted from Greek Poets in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1893.

Considering The Snail

The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth's dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,

pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts. I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail's fury? All
I think is that if later

I parted the blades above
the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
imagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.


Thom Gunn
(England, 1929 - 2004)

The Intoxicated Song

... "....Midnight is coming on:
so will I say something in your ears,
as that old bell says it in my ear,

... as secretly, as fearfully,
as warmly as that midnight bell tells it to me,
which has experienced more than one man:

... which hath already counted your fathers' painful heartbeats -
ah! ah! how it sighs! how in dreams it laughs!
the ancient, deep, deep midnight!

... Soft! Soft!
Then many a thing can be heard which may speak by day;
but now, in the cool air,
when all the clamour of your hearts, too, has grown still,

... now it speaks, now it is heard,
now it creeps into nocturnal, over-wakeful souls:
ah! ah! how it sighs! how in dreams it laughs!

... do you not hear,
how secretly, fearfully, warmly it speaks to you,
the ancient, deep, deep midnight?

O Man! Attend!"


Friedrich Nietzsche,
(1844-1900)
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra", The Intoxicated Song, R.J.Hollingdale translation

"Each Small Gleam Was A Voice"

"Each small gleam was a voice,
A lantern voice --
In little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.
A chorus of colours came over the water;
The wondrous leaf-shadow no longer wavered,
No pines crooned on the hills,
The blue night was elsewhere a silence,
When the chorus of colours came over the water,
Little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold."


Stephen Maria Crane,
(1871-1900)
From "Each Small Gleam Was A Voice

"Daylight and Moonlight"

"In broad daylight, and at noon,
Yesterday I saw the moon
Sailing high, but faint and white,
As a schoolboy's paper kite.

In broad daylight, yesterday,
I read a poet's mystic lay;
And it seemed to me at most
As a phantom, or a ghost.

But at length the feverish day
Like a passion died away,
And the night, serene and still,
Fell on village, vale, and hill.

Then the moon, in all her pride,
Like a spirit glorified,
Filled and overflowed the night
With revelations of her light.

And the Poet's song again
Passed like music through my brain;
Night interpreted to me
All its grace and mystery."


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
(1807-1882)

"New Year's Morning"

Only a night from old to new!
Only a night, and so much wrought!
The Old Year's heart all weary grew,
But said: The New Year rest has brought."
The Old Year's hopes its heart laid down,
As in a grave; but trusting, said:
"The blossoms of the New Year's crown
Bloom from the ashes of the dead."
The Old Year's heart was full of greed;
With selfishness it longed and ached,
And cried: "I have not half I need.
My thirst is bitter and unslaked.
But to the New Year's generous hand
All gifts in plenty shall return;
True love it shall understand;
By all y failures it shall learn.
I have been reckless; it shall be
Quiet and calm and pure of life.
I was a slave; it shall go free,
And find sweet pace where I leave strife."

Only a night from old to new!
Never a night such changes brought.
The Old Year had its work to do;
No New Year miracles are wrought.

Always a night from old to new!
Night and the healing balm of sleep!
Each morn is New Year's morn come true,
Morn of a festival to keep.
All nights are sacred nights to make
Confession and resolve and prayer;
All days are sacred days to wake
New gladness in the sunny air.
Only a night from old to new;
Only a sleep from night to morn.
The new is but the old coem true;
Each sunrise sees a new year born."


Helen Hunt Jackson,
(1830-1885)

The Old House

"In through the porch and up the silent stair;
Little is changed, I know so well the ways;--
Here, the dead came to meet me; it was there
The dream was dreamed in unforgotten days.

But who is this that hurries on before,
A flitting shade the brooding shades among?--
She turned,--I saw her face,--O God, it wore
The face I used to wear when I was young!

I thought my spirit and my heart were tamed
To deadness; dead the pangs that agonise.
The old grief springs to choke me,--I am shamed
Before that little ghost with eager eyes.

O turn away, let her not see, not know!
How should she bear it, how should understand?
O hasten down the stairway, haste and go,
And leave her dreaming in the silent land."


Amy Levy,
(1861–1889)

'Spleen'

I was not sorrowful, I could not weep,
And all my memories were put to sleep.

I watched the river grow more white and strange,
All day till evening I watched it change.

All day till evening I watched the rain
Beat wearily upon the window pane.

I was not sorrowful, but only tired
Of everything that ever I desired.

Her lips, her eyes, all day became to me
The shadow of a shadow utterly.

All day mine hunger for her heart became
Oblivion, until the evening came,

And left me sorrowful, inclined to weep,
With all my memories that could not sleep.


Ernest Dowson
in; Verses
Originally published 1896

Do you remember still the falling stars

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

Rainer Maria Rilke

In the Morning of Life

In the morning of life, when its cares are unknown,
And its pleasures in all their new lustre begin,
When we live in a bright-beaming world of our own,
And the light that surrounds us is all from within;
Oh 'tis not, believe me, in that happy time
We can love, as in hours of less transport we may; --
Of our smiles, of our hopes, 'tis the gay sunny prime,
But affection is truest when these fade away.

When we see the first glory of youth pass us by,
Like a leaf on the stream that will never return,
When our cup, which had sparkled with pleasure so high,
First tastes of the other, the dark-flowing urn;
Then, then in the time when affection holds sway
With a depth and a tenderness joy never knew;
Love, nursed among pleasures, is faithless as they,
But the love born of Sorrow, like Sorrow, is true.

In climes full of sunshine, though splendid the flowers,
Their sighs have no freshness, their odour no worth;
'Tis the cloud and the mist of our own Isle of showers
That call the rich spirit of fragrancy forth.
So it is not 'mid splendour, prosperity, mirth,
That the depth of Love's generous spirit appears;
To the sunshine of smiles it may first owe its birth,
But the soul of its sweetness is drawn out by tears.

Thomas Moore
(1779 - 1852 / Dublin / Ireland)

Come O'er the Sea

Come o'er the sea,
Maiden with me,
Mine through sunshine, storm, and snows;
Seasons may roll,
But the true soul
Burns the same, where'er it goes.
Let fate frown on, so we love and part not;
'Tis life where thou art, 'tis death were thou are not.
Then come o'er the sea,
Maiden with me,
Come wherever the wild wind blows;
Seasons may roll,
But the true soul
Burns the same, where'er it goes.

Was not the sea
Made for the Free,
Land for courts and chains alone?
Here we are slaves,
But, on the waves,
Love and Liberty's all our own.
No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us
All earth forgot, and all heaven around us --
Then come o'er the sea,
Maiden, with me,
Mine through sunshine, storms, and snows
Seasons may roll,
But the true soul
Burns the same, where'er it goes.


Thomas Moore
(1779 - 1852 / Dublin / Ireland)

''At the Mid Hour of Night''

AT the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
And tell me our love is remember'd even in the sky.

Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear,
When our voices commingling breathed like one on the ear;
And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,
I think, O my love! 'tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.


Thomas Moore.
(1779–1852)
(Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.)

The Spring of the Year

Gone were but the winter cold,
And gone were but the snow,
I could sleep in the wild woods
Where primroses blow.

Cold 's the snow at my head,

And cold at my feet;
And the finger of death 's at my e'en,
Closing them to sleep.

Let none tell my father
Or my mother so dear,
I'll meet them both in heaven
At the spring of the year.


Allan Cunningham
(1784–1842)
(Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.)

'The Grave of Love'

I DUG, beneath the cypress shade,
What well might seem an elfin's grave;
And every pledge in earth I laid,
That erst thy false affection gave.

I press'd them down the sod beneath;
I placed one mossy stone above;
And twined the rose's fading wreath
Around the sepulchre of love.

Frail as thy love, the flowers were dead
Ere yet the evening sun was set:
But years shall see the cypress spread,
Immutable as my regret.


Thomas Love Peacock.
( 1785–1866)
9Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900)