Venice masks

Friday 31 August 2012

His Boat - Catullus

This boat you see, friends, will tell you
that she was the fastest of craft,
not to be challenged for speed
by any vessel afloat, whether
driven by sail or the labour of oars.

Thursday 30 August 2012

Just Keep Quiet and Nobody Will Notice - Ogden Nash

There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.

Wednesday 29 August 2012

The Dream Called Life - Pedro Calderón de la Barca

A dream it was in which I found myself.
And you that hail me now, then hailed me king,

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Prayer and Blessing - Anon

With wonder struck the hero views
The Lord of hosts in ashes smeared ;
He views the crescent in his locks,
And bows before the God revered !

Monday 27 August 2012

By Moonlight - Nora May French

Is this the world I knew? Beneath the day
It glowed with golden heat, with vivid hues —
Mountains and sky that merged in melting blues
And hazy air that shimmered far away.

Sunday 26 August 2012

Eternity - Robert Herrick

1
O Years! and Age! Farewell:
Behold I go,
Where I do know
Infinity to dwell.

Saturday 25 August 2012

Friday 24 August 2012

Song of the Shirt - Thomas Hood

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the "Song of the Shirt."

Thursday 23 August 2012

Wrath set my hair bristling - Yueh Fei

By the railing I stand,
Showers have stopped,
I bristle with wrath, my hair uncaging.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

To A Cat - Jorge Luis Borges

Mirrors are not more silent
nor the creeping dawn more secretive;
in the moonlight, you are that panther
we catch sight of from afar.

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Before the Rain - Madison Cawein

Before the rain, low in the obscure east,
     Weak and morose the moon hung, sickly gray;
Around its disc the storm mists, cracked and creased,
     Wove an enormous web, wherein it lay
     Like some white spider hungry for its prey.

Monday 20 August 2012

The Little Box - Vasko Popa

The little box gets her first teeth
And her little length
Little width little emptiness
And all the rest she has

Sunday 19 August 2012

Old Song Re-Sung - Katharine Tynan

I saw three ships a-sailing,
A-sailing on the sea,
The first her masts were silver,
Her hull was ivory.
The snows came drifting softly,
And lined her white as wool;
Oh, Jesus, Son of Mary,
Thy Cradle beautiful!

Saturday 18 August 2012

Friday 17 August 2012

An Elegy On The Glory Of Her Sex, Mrs Mary Blaize - Oliver Goldsmith

Good people all, with one accord
Lament for Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word,—
From those who spoke her praise.

Thursday 16 August 2012

Under The Poplars - Cesar Vallejo

Like priestly imprisoned poets,
the poplars of blood have fallen asleep.
On the hills, the flocks of Bethlehem
chew arias of grass at sunset.

Wednesday 15 August 2012

My Lover Asks Me - Nizar Qabbani

My lover asks me:
"What is the difference between me and the sky?"

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Don Quixote - Nazim Hikmet

The knight of immortal youth
at the age of fifty found his mind in his heart
and on July morning went out to capture
the right, the beautiful, the just.

Monday 13 August 2012

Marriage -

Love springs as lightly from the human heart
    As springs the lovely rose upon the brier,
    Which turns the common hedge to floral fire,
As Love wings Time with rosy-feathered dart.

Thursday 9 August 2012

A Quarter Century Has Passed... - Georgy Ivanov

A quarter century has passed abroad
and hope has become a joke.
The radiant starscape above Nice
is permanently my native sky.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

History of Love - Yi Byeong-Ryul

A road curves to the left; the wall beside it is deeply scored with numerous gashes.

Tuesday 7 August 2012

The Song My Paddle Sings - E Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake)

West wind, blow from your prairie nest
Blow from the mountains, blow from the west,
The sail is idle, the sailor too;
Oh wind of the west, we wait for you.
Blow, blow!
I have wooed you so,
But never a favour you bestow.
You rock your cradle the hills between,
But scorn to notice my white lateen.

Monday 6 August 2012

Canadians - Will H. Ogilvie

With arrows on their quarters and with numbers on their hoofs,
With the trampling sound of twenty that re-echoes in the roofs,

Sunday 5 August 2012

A Hymn to God the Father - Ben Jonson

Hear me, O God!
A broken heart
Is my best part.
Use still thy rod,
That I may prove
Therein thy Love.

Saturday 4 August 2012

Molly Odell on her Birthday - Jonathan Odell

Amidst the rage of civil strife,
The orphan's cries, the widow's tears,
This day my rising dawn of life
Has measured five revolving years.

Friday 3 August 2012

Old Mates - David McKee Wright

I came up to-night to the station, the tramp had been longish and cold,
My swag ain't too heavy to carry, but then I begin to get old.
I came through this way to the diggings -- how long will that be ago now?
Thirty years! how the country has altered, and miles of it under the plough,
And Jack was my mate on the journey -- we both run away from the sea;
He's got on in the world and I haven't, and now he looks sideways on me.

Thursday 2 August 2012

Tea with Germans in 1931 - George Gömöri


— Today I was Thomas Mann's guest.
We had tea together. He has not changed at all,
he is still amiable, healthy, and not so rigid
as my fellow-writers, Móricz and Babits.

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Celebrate - Anna Akhmatova

Celebrate our anniversary – can’t you see
tonight the snowy night of our first winter
comes back again in every road and tree—
that winter night of diamantine splendour.