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Tag Archives: poetry

The Immortal Minds Were His Brethren

Only a few close friends knew of his theory: that much which is unworthy in human life might be avoided if people would only accustom themselves to talking in verse. “It need not exactly rhyme,” he said. “Nay, it really ought not to rhyme. Rhyming verse in the long run is an underhand attack on […]

And the Poet Says You Visit After Dark

On calm black waters filled with sleeping stars White Ophelia floats like a lily, Floating so slowly, bedded in long veils … —Hunting horns rise from the distant forest. A thousand years without sad Ophelia, A white ghost on the long black river; A thousand years of her sweet madness Murmuring its ballad in the […]

Wala Badali Sioni

Nyuni ya Layali Ewe nyumi ya layali pokea zangu salamu miye kula huwa sili menivamu muadhamu kama nanga ya jabali nimezidiwa ghulamu. Barua yangu pokea uyasome yalo humu yapate kukuelea yakuingie timamu mno tena niwilia kisoma zangu salamu. Nijile kwako, mwandani, ni uswahibu napenda meambatana na ini mahaba yamenikunda kama nswi baharini na kwangu yamenitanda. […]

Magnesium Marrow-Bone

Listen! You can hear her pale voice from within the conflagration. It always speaks truth. It always lies. She crackles like marrow-bone when she walks. Her eyes and mouth open and burn like magnesium. She is a contrary Gorgon; everything she looks at is forced into frenzied life. If you are very lucky and can […]

Or Blows to Produce a Note

En Vinternatt Stormen sätter sin mun till huset och blÃ¥ser för att fÃ¥ ton. Jag sover oroligt, vänder mig, läser blundande stormens text. Men barnets ögon är stora i mörkret och stormen den gnyr för barnet. BÃ¥da tycker om lampor som svänger. BÃ¥da är halvvägs mot sprÃ¥ket. Stormen har barnsliga händer och vingar. Karavanen skenar […]

Rise Again Starving

Mientras por competir con tu cabello, oro bruñido al sol relumbra en vano; mientras con menosprecio en medio el llano mira tu blanca frente el lilio bello; mientras a cada labio, por cogello, siguen más ojos que al clavel temprano; y mientras triunfa con desdén Lozano del luciente cristal tu gentil cuello: goza cuello, cabello, […]

The Shadow More Real

Efter nÃ¥gons död After a death Det var en gÃ¥ng en chock som lämnade efter sig en lÃ¥ng, blek, skimrande kometsvans. Den hyser oss. Den gör TV-bilderna suddiga. Den avsätter sig som kalla droppar pÃ¥ luftledningarna. Man kan fortfarande hasa fram pÃ¥ skidor i vintersolen mellan dungar där fjolÃ¥rslöven hänger kvar. De liknar blad rivna […]

To Go To Some Great Height And Look Down

I’m the soul in the body of the man named Nijinsky. Gaunt, I eat little, only what the spirit feeds me. I hate having a bloated stomach. It inhibits dancing. I’m afraid of crowds, of dancing for them— they demand a joyful jig but joy is death. They feel nothing but want my life to […]

Urges Onto the Whale-road the Unresisting Heart

Forþon nu min hyge hweorfeð ofer hreþerlocan, min modsefa mid mereflode, ofer hwæles eþel hweorfeð wide, eorþan sceatas—cymeð eft to me gifre ond grædig; gielleð anfloga, hweteð on hwælweg hreþer unwearnum ofer holma gelagu. And now my spirit twists out of my breast, my spirit out in the waterways, over the whale’s path it soars […]

Always Forming New Wholes

The difference is not a simple difference of degree between poets. It is something which had happened to the mind of England between the time of Donne or Lord Herbert of Cherbury and the time of Tennyson and Browning; it is the difference between the intellectual poet and the reflective poet. Tennyson and Browning are […]