Loneliness

From the play "Mother Courage"

You saw sagacious Solomon
You know what came of him,
To him complexities seemed plain.
He cursed the hour that gave birth to him
And saw that everything was vain.
How great and wise was Solomon.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's wisdom that had brought him to this state.
How fortunate the man with none.

You saw courageous Caesar next
You know what he became.
They deified him in his life
Then had him murdered just the same.
And as they raised the fatal knife
How loud he cried: you too my son!
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's courage that had brought him to that state.
How fortunate the man with none.

You heard of...

Rest, and be thankful! On the verge
Of the tall cliff rugged and grey,
But whose granite base the breakers surge,
And shiver their frothy spray,
Outstretched, I gaze on the eddying wreath
That gathers and flits away,
With the surf beneath, and between my teeth
The stem of the “ancient clay”.

With the anodyne cloud on my listless eyes,
With its spell on my dreamy brain,
As I watch the circling vapours rise
From the brown bowl up to the sullen skies,

My vision becomes more plain,
Till a dim kaleidoscope succeeds
Through the smoke-rack drifting and veering,
Like ghostly riders on phantom steeds
To a shadowy goal careering.

In their own generation the wise may sneer,
They hold our sports in derision;
Perchance to sophist, or sage, ...

Oh, tell me, ye breezes that spring from the west,
Oh, tell me, ere passing away,
If Leichhardt’s bold spirit has fled to its rest?
Where moulders the traveller’s clay?

Perchance as ye flitted on heedlessly by
The long lost was yielding his breath;
Perchance ye have borne on your wings the last sigh
That ’scap’d from the lone one in death.

Tell me, ye breezes, ye’ve traversed the wild,
And passed o’er the desolate spot,
Where reposeth in silence sweet Nature’s own child,
Where slumbers one nearly forgot?

Ye answer me not but are passing away
Ye breezes that spring from the west,
Unhallow’d still moulders the traveller’s clay,
For unknown is the place of his rest.

When the weary night is fled,
And the morning sky is red,
Then my heart doth rise and say,
'Surely she will come to-day.'

In the golden blaze of noon,
'Surely she is coming soon.'
In the twilight, 'Will she come?'
Then my heart with fear is dumb.

When the night wind in the trees
Plays its mournful melodies,
Then I know my trust is vain,
And she will not come again.

Volo con l' ali de' pensieri al cielo.

HE SEEMS TO BE WITH HER IN HEAVEN.


    So often on the wings of thought I fly
Up to heaven's blissful seats, that I appear
As one of those whose treasure is lodged there,
The rent veil of mortality thrown by.
A pleasing chillness thrills my heart, while I
Listen to her voice, who bids me paleness wear--
"Ah! now, my friend, I love thee, now revere,
For changed thy face, thy manners," doth she cry.
She leads me to her Lord: and then I bow,
Preferring humble prayer, He would allow
That I his glorious face, and hers might see.
Thus He replies: "Thy destiny's secure;
To stay some twenty, or some ten years more,
Is but a little space, though long it seems to thee."

NOTT.

From "La Diana de Monte-Mayor," in Spanish:    where Sireno, a shepherd, whose mistress Diana had utterly forsaken him, pulling out a little of her hair, wrapped about with green silk, to the hair he thus bewailed himself.

What changes here, O hair,
I see, since I saw you!
How ill fits you this green to wear,
For hope, the colour due!
Indeed, I well did hope,
Though hope were mixed with fear,
No other shepherd should have scope
Once to approach this hair.

Ah hair! how many days
My Dian made me show,
With thousand pretty childish plays,
If I ware you or no:
Alas, how oft with tears, -
O tears of guileful breast! -
She seemed full of jealous fears,
Whereat I did but jest.

Tell me, O hair of gold,
If I then faulty be,
That trust t...

The antique Babel, empresse of the East,
Upreard her buildinges to the threatned skie:
And second Babell, tyrant of the West,
Her ayry towers upraised much more high.
But with the weight of their own surquedry**
They both are fallen, that all the earth did feare,
And buried now in their own ashes ly,
Yet shewing, by their heapes, how great they were.
But in their place doth now a third appeare,
Fayre Venice, flower of the last worlds delight;
And next to them in beauty draweth neare,
But farre exceedes in policie of right.
    Yet not so fayre her buildinges to behold
    As Lewkenors stile that hath her beautie told.

Abundant plagues I late have had,
Yet none of these have made me sad:
For why? My Saviour with the sense
Of suff'ring gives me patience.

Man's are the learnings of his books
What is all knowledge that he knows
Beside the wit of winding brooks,
The wisdom of the summer rose!
How soil distills the scent in flowers
Baffles his science: heaven-dyed,
How, from the palette of His hours,
God gives them colors, hath defied.

What dream of heaven begets the light?
Or, ere the stars beat burning tunes,
Stains all the hollow edge of night
With glory as of molten moons?
Who is it answers what is birth
Or death, that nothing may retard?
Or what is love, that seems of Earth,
Yet wears God's own divine regard?

Good morrow to the golden morning,
Good morrow to the world's delight -
I've come to bless thy life's beginning,
Since it makes my own so bright!

I have brought no roses, sweetest,
I could find no flowers, dear, -
It was when all sweets were over
Thou wert born to bless the year.

But I've brought thee jewels, dearest,
In thy bonny locks to shine, -
And if love shows in their glances,
They have learn'd that look of mine!

Cowslip bud, so early peeping,
Warm'd by April's hazard hours;
O'er thy head though sunshine's creeping,
Close the threatening tempest lowers:
Trembling blossom, let me bear thee
To a better, safer home;
Though a fairer blossom wear thee,
Never tempest there shall come:
Mary's bonny breast to charm thee,
Bosom soft as down can be,
Eyes like any suns to warm thee,
And scores of sweets unknown to me;--
Ah! for joys thou'lt there be meeting,
In a station so divine,
I could wish, what's vain repeating,
Cowslip bud, thy life were mine.

Let not that day God's friends and servants scare;
The bench is then their place, and not the bar.

A pistol-shot rings round and round the world:
In pitiful defeat a warrior lies.
A last defiance to dark Death is hurled,
A last wild challenge shocks the sunlit skies.
Alone he falls with wide, wan, woeful eyes:
Eyes that could smile at death - could not face shame.

Alone, alone he paced his narrow room,
In the bright sunshine of that Paris day;
Saw in his thought the awful hand of doom;
Saw in his dream his glory pass away;
Tried in his heart, his weary heart, to pray:
"O God! who made me, give me strength to face
The spectre of this bitter, black disgrace."

*    *    *    *    *

The burn brawls darkly down the shaggy glen,
The bee-kissed heather blooms around the door;
He sees himself a barefoot boy again,
Bending o'er page of legenda...

I twined a wreath of heather white
To bind my lady’s hair,
And deemed her locks in even light
Would well the burden bear;
But when I saw the tresses brown,
And found the face so fair,
I tore the wreath, and left the crown
Of beauty only there.

When words we want, Love teacheth to indite;
And what we blush to speak, she bids us write.

They come fluttering helpless to the ground
Like wreaths of wind-caught snow,
Uttering a plaintive, chirping sound,
And rise and fall, and know not where they go.

So small they are, with feathers ruffled blown,
Adrift between earth desolate and leaden sky;
Nor have they ever known
Any but frozen earth, and scudding clouds on high.

What hand doth guide these hapless creatures small
To sweet seeds that the withered grasses hold?,
The little children of men go hungry all,
And stiffen and cry with numbing cold.

In a sudden gust the flock are whirled away
Uttering a frightened, chirping cry,
And are lost like a wraith of departing day,
Adrift between earth desolate and leaden sky.

Who was it swept against my door just now,
With rustling robes like Autumn's - was it thou?
Ah! would it were thy gown against my door -
Only thy gown once more.

Sometimes the snow, sometimes the fluttering breath
Of April, as toward May she wandereth,
Make me a moment think that it is thou -
But yet it is not thou!

Whilst others proclaim
This nymph or that swain,
Dearest Nelly the lovely I'll sing:
She shall grace every verse,
I'll her beauties rehearse,
Which lovers can't think an ill thing.

Her eyes shine as bright
As stars in the night;
Her complexion's divinely fair;
Her lips red as a cherry,
Would a hermit make merry,
And black as a coal is her hair.

Her breath, like a rose,
Its sweets does disclose,
Whenever you ravish a kiss
Like ivory inchas'd,
Her teeth are well placed;
And exquisite beauty she is.

Her plump breasts are white,
Delighting the sight,
There Cupid discovers her charms;
Oh! spare then the rest,
And think of the best;
'Tis heaven to die in her arms.

She's blooming as May,
Brisk, live...