Venice masks

Monday 30 April 2012

The East Wind Blows Over the Water (The Lover's Return) - Li Yu

The east wind blows over the water, the sun sits by the hill,
Though spring has come, the idleness persists.

Sunday 29 April 2012

Old and New - Edmund Gosse

I. B.C.

Come, Hesper, and ye Gods of mountain waters,
Come, nymphs and Dryades,
Come, silken choir of soft Pierian daughters,
And girls of lakes and seas,
Evoë! and evoë Io! crying,
Fill all the earth and air;
Evoë! till the quivering words, replying,
Shout back the echo there!

Saturday 28 April 2012

The Cow - Oliver Herford

The Cow is too well known, I fear,
To need an introduction here.

Friday 27 April 2012

Faith - Ada Cambridge


And is the great cause lost beyond recall?
Have all the hopes of ages come to naught?

Thursday 26 April 2012

Spring - Boris Pasternak


How many sticky buds, candle ends
sprout from the branches! Steaming
April. Puberty sweats from the park,
and the forest’s blatantly gleaming.

Wednesday 25 April 2012

Nurse - Abdul Ghani Khan

To serve the sick and wretched
Is not service but worship;

Tuesday 24 April 2012

To Chloë (Odes, I, 23) - Horace


You shun me, Chloë, wild and shy,
As some stray fawn that seeks its mother
Through trackless woods. If spring winds sigh
It vainly strives its fears to smother.

Monday 23 April 2012

A piper - Seamus O'Sullivan

A piper in the streets today
Set up, and tuned, and started to play,

Sunday 22 April 2012

Hands - Bruce Levitan

The hands that made the stuff of stars are
the hands that bled and were torn.
      The hands that mined the ore, or
the hands that made the nails are
the hands that held the flails.

Friday 20 April 2012

Tomorrow - Lope de Vega

LORD, what am I, that with unceasing care
Thou did'st seek after me, that Thou did'st wait
Wet with unhealthy dews before my gate,

Wednesday 18 April 2012

In the Restaurant - Claire Zu Bard

H, dark and fascinating young man,
(Sitting opposite me at the restaurant-table),
There are spots of color on your thin cheek-bones
And your eyes are deep and smoldering....
Your feverish fingers hold hopefully your glass of milk
And you eat your soft-boiled eggs with a relish.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

The Infinite - Giacomo Leopardi

It was always dear to me, this solitary hill,
and this hedgerow here, that closes out my view,
from so much of the ultimate horizon.

Monday 16 April 2012

Nature's calm - Alcman

The mountain brows, the rocks, the peaks, are sleeping,
Uplands and gorges hush!

Sunday 15 April 2012

Heart-Slopes - Rainer Maria Rilke

Out on the heart-slopes. See, how tiny down there,
See, the last village of words, and higher,

Saturday 14 April 2012

Come to me here - Sappho

Come to me here from Crete,
To this holy temple, where
Your lovely apple grove stands,
And your altars that flicker
With incense.

Friday 13 April 2012

Within my heart I felt the sudden stir - Dante Alighieri

Within my heart I felt the sudden stir
of a loving spirit that lay sleeping:
and saw Love then, coming from afar,
so joyously that I scarcely knew him,

Tuesday 10 April 2012

Paris, October 1936 - Cesar Vallejo

From all of this I am the only one who leaves.
From this bench I go away, from my pants,
from my great situation, from my actions,
from my number split side to side,
from all of this I am the only one who leaves.

Monday 9 April 2012

Christ's Resurrection - Edmund Elys

Our LORD is Risen; and the Powerful Grave
Holds him no longer; He hath made his way
Even through the Gates of Death, that He might save
His Heav'nly Flesh from turning into Clay.
The Grave knew not whom he had taken; when
He saw who 'twas, he let Him out agen.

Sunday 8 April 2012

Easter Communion - Gerard Manley Hopkins

Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast:
God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.

Saturday 7 April 2012

The Chief - Domhnull mac Fhionnlaidh

Let clouds rest on the hills: spirits fly, and travellers fear.
Let the winds of the woods arise, the sounding storms descend.
Roar streams and windows flap, and green-winged meteors fly!
Rise the pale moon from behind her hills, or inclose her head in clouds!
Night is alike to me, blue, stormy, or gloomy the sky.
 Night flies before the beam, when it is poured on the hill.
The young day returns from his clouds, but we return no more.

Friday 6 April 2012

Still falls the rain - Edith Sitwell

Still falls the Rain—
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss—
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.

Thursday 5 April 2012

Birthdays - Robert Service

Let us have birthdays every day,
(I had the thought while I was shaving)
Because a birthday should be gay,
And full of grace and good behaving.
We can't have cakes and candles bright,
And presents are beyond our giving,
But let lt us cherish with delight
The birthday way of lovely living.

Monday 2 April 2012