Away with funeral music -- set
The pipe to powerful lips --
The cup of life's for him that drinks
And not for him that sips.
“Away with Funeral Music” by Robert Louis Stevenson [w/ Audio]
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When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, July 4, 1837
What was her blondness like? I can't recall,
But I do know the blondness of the fields,
When the wheat fields' grain ripen in the Fall,
And in this blondness her presence I feel.
What were her blue eyes like, I can't recall,
But I do know the blueness of the sky,
September morn, or later in the Fall,
And then again I do feel her nearby.
What was her silky voice like? Can't remember,
But in springtime, when fields begin to sigh,
I feel that Anna's voice is calling, tender,
From a past Spring that's as far as the sky.
Translation by Frank Veszely in: Hungarian Poetry: One Thousand Years. 2023. Manitoba, CA: Friesen Press.
The water understands
Civilization well;
It wets my foot, but prettily,
It chills my life, but wittily,
It is not disconcerted,
It is not broken-hearted:
Well used, it decketh joy,
Adorneth, doubleth joy:
Ill used, it will destroy,
In perfect time and measure
With a face of golden pleasure
Elegantly destroy.
Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate.
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.