old pond, a frog jumps: "plop-splash!"
Original: 古池や蛙飛びこむ水の音; Romanized: furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto
furu ike ya [Old Pond] by Matsuo Bashō
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Category Archives: Literature
Fog by Carl Sandburg
The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.
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PLAYTHINGS by Rabindranath Tagore [w/ Audio]
CHILD, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning. I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig. I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour. Perhaps you glance at me and think, "What a stupid game to spoil your morning with!" Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud-pies. I seek out costly playthings, and gather lumps of gold and silver. With whatever you find you create your glad games, I spend both my time and my strength over things I never can obtain. In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the sea of desire, and forget that I too am playing a game.
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BOOKS: The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore
![The Crescent Moon : Poems and Stories [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2017] Rabindranath Tagore](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1517041908l/38215485._SX98_.jpg)
The Crescent Moon : Poems and Stories [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2017] Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath TagoreMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Available free at Project Gutenberg
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This is a collection of forty poems that are all connected by the theme of childhood. Many are in the voice of a child, but others are in a parent’s voice as he contemplates the nature of youth and how life has changed — or simply as he looks upon a sleeping infant. Some are brief stories or vignettes and others are scenes or philosophical reflections. Among the more well-known inclusions are: “Playthings,” “Paper Boats,” “The Gift,” and “My Song.”
This is Tagore at his most playful, but it retains his usual clever musing.
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“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.
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The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats [w/ Audio]
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
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She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron [w/ Audio]
She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright Meets in her aspect and her eyes, Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress Or softly lightens o'er her face, Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. And on that cheek and o'er that brow So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow But tell of days in goodness spent,-- A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent.
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BOOKS: The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar WildeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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This play is an amusing cautionary tale on the dangers of “Bunburying” and / or leading a double life. “Bunburying,” a term coined by Wilde in this play, is the act of concocting meetings with a fictitious friend to get out of tedious familial (and other social) obligations. Don’t want to go to Aunt Bessie’s potluck? Tell her that your friend with a plausibly absurd name (e.g. Bunbury) has ruptured a disc in his back and desperately needs your assistance. Bunburying is the specialty of one of the two bachelor characters this story is built around, a man named Algernon. The other, Jack, goes by the name Ernest when he is in London, and has to invent the story that he has a brother when his town and country dichotomy of personalities starts to be seen through by those other than Algernon.
This humorous tale revolves around both Algernon and Jack finding desirable fiancés while being tangled in the web of their own duplicity. Much of the humor comes from the interactions of Algernon and Jack, two men who are quite alike, though Jack thinks himself more respectable. Algernon is more at ease with his own scamp-like nature and plays a role similar to that played by Lord Henry in Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. That is, Algernon offers many a quotable line that at least has the appearance of wisdom — if, often, a kind of nihilistic wisdom.
This play is definitely worth reading.
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Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley [w/ Audio]
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
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I dwell in Possibility (466) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]
I dwell in Possibility -- A fairer House than Prose -- More numerous of Windows -- Superior -- for doors -- Of Chambers as the Cedars -- Impregnable of eye -- And for an everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky -- Of Visitors -- the fairest -- For Occupation -- This -- The spreading wide of my narrow Hands To gather Paradise --
Tiger Riding for Beginners 