They in their cruel traps, and we in ours, Survey each other's rage, and pass the hours Commiserating each the other's woe, To mitigate his own pain's fiery glow. Man could but little proffer in exchange Save that his cages have a larger range. That lion with his lordly, untamed heart Has in some man his human counterpart, Some lofty soul in dreams and visions wrapped, But in the stifling flesh securely trapped. Guant eagle whose raw pinions stain the bars That prison you, so men cry for the stars! Some delve down like the mole far underground, (Their nature is to burrow, not to bound), Some, like the snake, with changeless slothful eye, Stir not, but sleep and smoulder where they lie. Who is most wretched, these caged ones, or we, Caught in a vastness beyond our sight to see?
Before me lies a mass of shapeless days, Unseparated atoms, and I must Sort them apart and live them. Sifted dust Covers the formless heap. Reprieves, delays, There are none, ever. As a monk who prays The sliding beads asunder, so I thrust Each tasteless particle aside, and just Begin again the task which never stays. And I have known a glory of great suns. When days flashed by, pulsing with joy and fire! Drunk bubbled wine in goblets of desire, And felt the whipped blood laughing as it runs! Split is that liquor, my too hasty hand Threw down the cup, and did not understand.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life, and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art -- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -- No -- yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever -- or else swoon to death.
Lush grass covers the plains. One year it withers; the next, it thrives. Wildfires burn, but not to eradication. With Spring winds, it's rejuvenated. Its aroma floats in to subdue derelict paths. Vivid green overtakes the ghost town. I say farewell to departing friends as intense feeling swells within.
Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call today his own: He who, secure within, can say, Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. Be fair or foul, or rain or shine The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not Heaven itself, upon the past has power, But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 