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The Cow in Apple-Time
Dagaz
Do Not Go Gentle
Dust of Snow
Fragmentary Blue
Hate
High Flight
I am the Cat
Noone Knows But Me
The Quarrel
The Raven
The Road Not Taken
The Runaway
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
THE
COW IN APPLE-TIME
Something
inspires the only cow of late
To make no more of a wall than an open gate,
And think no more of wall-builders than fools.
Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools
A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit,
She scorns a pasture withering to the root.
She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten.
The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten.
She leaves them bitten when she has to fly.
She bellows on a knoll against the sky.
Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.
~
Robert Frost
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DAGAZ
Day
is the Sun-dight
Dazzling dream
Doorway to Alf-home,
Threshold of light,
Yard of winged ones
The Early-flyers,
Two sides of Minne
At dawn swiftly down
Fly forth seeking
No deed or dighel
Of Hugin and Munin
At dusk they make swiftly
Settling safe
Whispering at twilight
Their harsh croakings
And pleasing draught
On His brow
Awareness of All,
Blazes forth,
His eyes, one bright,
As day and night
Both hard truth
As He gazes out
With His dire birds
dancing with stars,
decked in night,
Drawn on the brow,
thunder-brand striking,
in the welkin's trendel
on errantry
mantled in black
into dragon-ringed Midgarth,
the sooth of the world;
from the deeming eyes
is hidden ever;
their Drighten to meet,
on the shoulders of Óðinn,
tidings of day,
a cunning sweetness
to One parched for knowledge.
a burning rune,
Óðinn's mede,
blinding as Sunna,
one black as space
drink in all,
and hidden,
from Gladsheim's gates
as dark comes.
~
Wodensharrow
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DO
NOT GO GENTLE
Do
not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though
wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good
men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild
men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave
men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And
you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do
not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~
Dylan Thomas
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DUST
OF SNOW
The
way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
~
Robert Frost
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FRAGMENTARY BLUE
WHY
make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?
Since
earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)- 5
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.
~
Robert Frost
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HATE
My
enemy came nigh,
And I
Stared fiercely in his face.
My lips went writhing back in a grimace,
And stern I watched him with a narrow eye,
Then as I turned away my enemy,
That bitter heart and savage, said to me;
"Some
day, when this is past,
When all the arrows we have cast,
We may ask one another why we hate,
And fail to find a story to relate.
It may seem to us then a mystery
That we could hate each other."
Thus said he,
And did not turn away,
Waiting to hear what I might say,
But, I fled quickly, fearing if I stayed
I might have kissed him as I would a maid.
~
James Stephens
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HIGH
FLIGHT
Oh,
I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
~
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
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I
AM THE CAT
In Egypt the worshiped me -
I am the Cat.
Because I bend not to the will of man
They call me a mystery.
When I catch and play with a mouse
They call me cruel,
Yet they take animals to keep
In parks and zoos, that they may gape at them.
Nay, more, they persecute their own human creatures;
They shoot, they hang, they torture them,
Yet dare to call me cruel.
Could they but see themselves
As I, the Cat, see them,
These human creatures, bereft of all freedom,
Who follow in the ruts others made
Long ages gone!
Who have rings in their noses,
Yet know it not.
They hate me, the Cat,
Because, foresooth, I do not love them.
Do they love me?
They think all animals are made for their pleasure,
To be their slaves.
And, while I kill only for my needs,
They kill for pleasure, power and gold,
And then pretend to be superiority!
Why should I love them?
I, the Cat, whose ancestors
Proudly trod the jungle,
Not one ever tamed by man.
Ah, do they know
That the same immortal hand
That gave them breath, gave breath to me?
But I alone am free -
I am THE CAT.
~
Leila Usher
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Noone
Knows But Me
There's a place that I travel
When I want to roam,
And nobody knows it but me
The roads don't go there
And the signs stay home
And nobody knows it but me
It's far far away and way way afar
It's over the moon and the sea
And wherever you're going
That's wherever you are
And nobody knows it but me.
~
Patrick O'Leary
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THE
QUARREL
I
quarrelled with my brother
I don't know what about,
One thing led to another
And somehow we fell out.
The
start of it was light,
The end of it was strong,
He said he was right,
I knew he was wrong!
We
hated one another,
The afternoon turned black,
Then suddenly my brother
Thumped me on the back,
And
said, "Oh, come along!
We can't go on all night -
I was in the wrong."
So he was in the right.
~
Eleanor Farjeon
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THE
RAVEN
Once
upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'T is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber
door--
Only this and nothing more."
Ah,
distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the
floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; --vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.
And
the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me-filled me with fantastic terrors never felt
before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
" 'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;--
This it is and nothing more."
Presently
my soul grew stronger; hesitating them no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide
the door;--
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep
into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering,
fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream
before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no
token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word "Lenore!"
Merely this and nothing more.
Back
into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window
lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore--
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
'T is the wind and nothing more!"
Open
here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of
yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or
stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber
door--
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then
this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art
sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly
shore--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian
shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
Much
I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber
door--
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber
door,
With such name as "Nevermore."
But
the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered--not a feather then he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown
before--
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore."
Startled
at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and
store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden
bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never-nevermore.'"
This
I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's
core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloating
o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating
o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then,
me thought, the air grew denser, perfumed from and unseen
censor
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted
floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "They God hath leant thee--by these angel
he hath sent thee
Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost
Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet",
said I, "thing of evil-profit still if bird or devil!--
Whether tempter sent or whether tempest tossed thee here
ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by Horror haunted-tell me truly I implore--
Is there--is there balm in Gilead? --Tell me--Tell me I
implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet",
said I, "thing of evil-profit still if bird or devil!--
By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both
adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant
Aidenn,
It shall a clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angel name Lenore!--
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Be
that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked
upstarting--
"Get back into the Tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath
spoken!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from
off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
And
the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming or a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming, throws his shadow
on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the
floor,
Shall be lifted nevermore!
~
Edgar Allen Poe
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THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two
roads diverged into a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, 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 onto 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 traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~
Robert Frost
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THE
RUNAWAY
Once
when the snow of the year was beginning to fall,
We stopped by a mountain pasture to say, "Whose colt?"
A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall,
The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head
And snorted to us. And then we saw him bolt.
We heard the miniature thunder where he fled,
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and gray,
Like a shadow across instead of behind the flakes.
The little fellow's afraid of the falling snow.
He never saw it before. It isn't play
With the little fellow at all. He's running away.
He wouldn't believe when his mother told him, 'Sakes,
It's only weather.' He thought she didn't know!
So this is something he has to bear alone
And now he comes again with a clatter of stone,
He mounts the wall again with whited eyes
Dilated nostrils, and tail held straight up straight.
He shudders his coat as if to throw off flies.
"Whoever it is that leaves him out so late,
When all other creatures have gone to stall and bin,
Ought to be told to come and take him in."
~
Robert Frost
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STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOW EVENING
Whose
woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
~
Robert Frost
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