on a barren branch
a raven has perched —-
autumn dusk
“Raven at Dusk” by Matsuo Bashō [w/ Audio]
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Category Archives: Literature
“Second Fig” by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
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“An Akan Lullaby” by Anonymous [w/ Audio]
Someone would like to have you for her child
but you are mine.
Someone would like to rear you on a costly mat
but you are mine.
Someone would like to place you on a camel blanket
but you are mine.
I have you to rear on a torn old mat.
Someone would like to have you as her child
but you are mine.
NOTE: I have no specific author or translator information for this poem. (The former may not be surprising as it may be lost to history.) At any rate, my source is Classic Poems to Read Aloud, an anthology selected by James Berry (1995; Kingfisher Publications,) and it was titled “Lullaby.” That book cites a Cambridge University Press volume entitled African Poetry, edited by Ulli Beier, as its source.
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“Autumn” by Amy Lowell [w/ Audio]
All day I have watched the purple vine leaves
Fall into the water.
And now in the moonlight they still fall,
But each leaf is fringed with silver.
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“Scorn not the Sonnet” by William Wordsworth [w/ Audio]
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways, and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains -- alas, too few!
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“Picking Mulberries” by Ouyang Xiu [w/ Audio]
Adrift on West Lake in a wine-laden, colorful skiff:
As flutes play fast and lutes, deftly
And a jade cup circuits swiftly,
The boat's calm rocking lulls the drunk into sleep.
Thin clouds seem to float right under the rudderless boat.
The water's blue matches the sky's,
As lake to sky and back move eyes,
"Do the clouds above match those that in the water float?"
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“You know where you despise” by Alexander Pope [w/ Audio]
You know where you despise
(Tother day) my little Eyes,
Little Legs, and little Thighs,
And some things, of little Size,
You know where.
You, tis true, have fine black eyes,
Taper legs, and tempting Thighs,
Yet what more than all we prize
Is a Thing of little Size,
You know where.
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“Dust of Snow” by Robert Frost [w/ Audio]
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change in mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
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Five Wise Lines [June 2024]
The man who says to me, “Believe as I do, or God will damn thee,” will presently say, “Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate thee.”
Voltaire, in On superstition
The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Marcel proust
The translation of a poem having any depth ends by being one of two things: Either it is the expression of the translator, virtually a new poem, or it is as it were a photograph, as exact as possible, of one side of the statue.
Ezra pound
The people are of supreme importance to the ruler,
Chinese adage
food is of supreme importance to the people.
All translators face two choices: leave the reader in peace and drag the author closer, or leave the author in peace and drag the reader closer.
Friedrich schleiermacher (1768-1834)
[Referenced in Twenty-Nine GOODBYES, ed. by timothy billings]
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“Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley [w/ Audio]
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? --
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
Tiger Riding for Beginners 