All those years and I never realized
why I found the mourning dove so interesting
until you pointed out
that morning we stood by the icy window
its resemblance to Robert Penn Warren—
the secretive eyes, soft royal neck,
and the mild, unruffled demeanor.

It was the day after a garrulous night
of champagne and shrimp, lamb and red wine
and we were watching a huddle of them
pecking around in the fresh snow under the feeder
(Pulitzer Prize winners all)
and your comment, so astute and perfectly weird,
made me feel enclosed again in the coded talk
of friendship, that tall pagoda
where companions can sit on pillows
and observe the great China of life filing by
and say whatever comes to mind.

—Billy Collins, from Influence, in the collection The Art of Drowning

—François Villon, lines from Le Testament

But here my Muse her wing maun cour,
Sic flights are far beyond her power;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang,
(A souple jade she was and strang),
And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch’d,
And thought his very een enrich’d:
Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain,
And hotch’d and blew wi’ might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a thegither,
And roars out, “Weel done, Cutty-sark!”
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied.
When out the hellish legion sallied.

—Robert Burns, from Tam O’ Shanter

To be real on this path you must be humble—
If you look down at others you’ll get pushed down the stairs.

If your heart goes around on high, you fly far from this path.
There’s no use hiding it—
What’s inside always leaks outside.

Even the one with the long white beard, the one who looks so wise—
If he breaks a single heart, why bother going to Mecca?
If he has no compassion, what’s the point?

My heart is the throne of the Beloved,
the Beloved the heart’s destiny:
Whoever breaks another’s heart will find no homecoming
in this world or any other.

The ones who know say very little
while the beasts are always speaking volumes;
One word is enough for one who knows.

If there is any meaning in the holy books, it is this:
Whatever is good for you, grant it to others too—

Whoever comes to this earth migrates back;
Whoever drinks the wine of love
understands what I say—

Yunus, don’t look down at the world in scorn—

Keep your eyes fixed on your Beloved’s face,
then you will not see the bridge
on Judgment Day.

—Yunus, “One Who Is Real Is Humble”
Translated into English by Refik Algan and Kabir Helminski

A single word can brighten the face
of one who knows the value of words.
Ripened in silence, a single word
acquires a great energy for work.

War is cut short by a word,
and a word heals the wounds,
and there’s a word that changes
poison into butter and honey.

Let a word mature inside yourself.
Withhold the unripened thought.
Come and understand the kind of word
that reduces money and riches to dust.

Know when to speak a word
and when not to speak at all.
A single word turns a universe of hell
into eight paradises.

Follow the Way. Don’t be fooled
by what you already know. Be watchful.
Reflect before you speak.
A foolish mouth can brand your soul.

Yunus, say one last thing
about the power of words—
Only the word “I”
divides me from God.

—Yunus Emre, Poem 11 from The Drop that Became the Sea
Translated by Refik Algan and Kabir Helminski

Unmoved by what the wind does,
The windows
Are not rattled, nor do the various
Areas
Of the house make their usual racket—
Creak at
The joints, trusses and studs.
Instead,
They are still. And the maples,
Able
At times to raise havoc,
Evoke
Not a sound from their branches’
Clutches.
It’s my night to be rattled,
Saddled
With spooks. Even the half-moon
(Half man,
Half dark), on the horizon,
Lies on
Its side casting a fishy light
Which alights
On my floor, lavishly lording
Its morbid
Look over me. Oh, I feel dead,
Folded
Away in my blankets for good, and
Forgotten.
My room is clammy and cold,
Moonhandled
And weird. The shivers
Wash over
Me, shaking my bones, my loose ends
Loosen,
And I lie sleeping with one eye open,
Hoping
That nothing, nothing will happen.

—Mark Strand, Sleeping With One Eye Open

My favorite bit is:

Oh, I feel dead,
Folded
Away in my blankets for good, and
Forgotten.
My room is clammy and cold,
Moonhandled
And weird.

The rhymes here are aces. “Feel dead” to “Folded,” and “for good, and” to “Forgotten.” Ah, me.
Also, “weird” in this context connotes more of the Weird Sisters than the overused adolescent epithet of lazy confusion. A good example of the elevation of language Stevenson was on about, which Borges referenced in his lecture, Thought and Poetry.

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer’s fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

—Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

I thought it over; it went against me to lay out strychnine for lions, and I told him that I could not see my way to do it. At that his excitement changed over into exasperation. The lions, he said, if they were left in peace over this crime, would come back another time. The bullocks they had killed were our best working bullocks, and we could not afford to lose any more. The stable of my ponies, he reminded me, was not far from the oxen’s enclosure, had I thought of that? I explained that I did not mean to keep the lions on the farm, only I thought that they should be shot and not poisoned.

“And who is going to shoot them?” asked Nichols. “I am no coward, but I am a married man and I have no wish to risk my life unnecessarily.” It was true that he was no coward, he was a plucky little man. “There would be no sense in it,” he said. No, I said, I did not mean to make him shoot the lions. But Mr. Finch-Hatton had arrived the night before and was in the house, he and I would go. “Oh, that is O.K.” said Nichols.

I then went in to find Denys. “Come now,” I said to him, “and let us go and risk our lives unnecessarily. For if they have got any value at all it is this that they have got none. Frei lebt wer sterben kann.”

—Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

Love is no fox,
Nor you a bunch of grapes.
But unbeknown my heart stole out
And plucked you in secret, when no one was about.

—Toson Shimazaki, Crafty Fox

Halley’s comet appeared in 1910
(And I was born in the following year):
Its period being seventy-six years and seven days,
It is due to reappear in 1986
So I read, and my heart sunk.
It is unlikely that I shall ever see that star
And probably that is the case with human encounters.
An understanding mind one meets as seldom,
And an undistracted love one wins as rarely.
I know that my true friend will appear after my death,
And my sweetheart died before I was born.

—Katsumi Tanaka, Chance Encounter

I found this poem through Harlan Ellison. He quotes the last two lines in his story, Grail.