POESIA
O Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is
done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought
is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the
bells;
Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths - for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Hear Captain! dear father!
The arm beneath your head!
It is some dream your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and
still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed
and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shore, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
WALT WHITMAN
O me! O life! of the questions of these
recurring.
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd
with the foolish.
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish
than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean,
of the struggle ever renew'd.
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid
crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the
rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring -- What good amid
these, O me, O life?
Answer That you are here--that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute
a verse.
WALT WHITMAN
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today,
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the
sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
and while ye may, go marry;
For having lost just once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
ROBERT HERRICK
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
In a mean abode on the Skankill Road
Lived a man named William Bloat;
He had a wife, the curse of his life,
Who continually got his goat.
So one day at dawn, with her nightdress on
He cut her bloody throat.
With a razor gash he settled her hash
Oh never was crime so quick
But the drip drip drip on the pillowslip '
Of her lifeblood made him sick.
And the pool of gore on the bedroom floor
Grew clotted and cold and thick.
And yet he was glad he had done what he had
When she lay there stiff and still
But a sudden awe of the angry law
Struck his heart with an icy chill.
So to finish the fun so well begun
He resolved himself to kill.
He took the sheet from the wife's coul' feet
And twisted it into a rope
And he hanged himself from the pantry shelf,
'Twas an easy end, let's hope.
In the face of death with his latest breath
He solemnly cursed the Pope.
But the strangest turn to the whole concern
Is only just beginning.
He went to Hell but his wife got well
And she's still alive and sinning.
For the razor blade was German made
But the sheet was Belfast linen.
RAYMOND CALVERT
The God of Love, if such a thing there
be,
May learn to love from me,
He who does boast that he has bin,
In every Heart since Adams sin,
I'll lay my Life, nay Mistress on't, that's more;
I'll teach him things he never knew before;
I'll teach him a receipt to make
Words that weep, and Tears that speak,
I'll teach him Sighs, like those in death,
At which the Souls go out too with the breath;
Still the Soul stays, yet still does from me run;
As Light and Heat does with the Sun.
'Tis I who Love's Columbus am; 'tis I, Who must new Worlds
in it descry;
Rich Worlds, that yield of Treasure more,
than that has been known before,
And yet like his (I fear) my fate must be,
To find them out for others; not for Me.
Me Times to come, I know it, shall
Loves last and greatest prophet call.
But, ah, what's that, if she refuse,
To hear the whole doctrines of my Muse?
If to my share the Prophets fate must come;
Hereafter fame, here Martyrdome.
ABRAHAM COWLEY
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am
untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any
on the
shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway
sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I
love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
WALT WHITMAN
Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair;
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, And I-
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
ROBERT FROST
Shall I compare thee to a
summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARRE
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet 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!
LORD BYRON