No.54

Quick! We have but a Second
Thomas Moore 1779-1852

Quick! we have but a second,
        Fill round the cup while you may;
     For time, the churl, hath beckon'd,
        And we must away, away!
     Grasp the pleasure that's flying,
        For oh, not Orpheus' strain
     Could keep sweet hours from dying,
        Or charm them to life again.
          Then, quick! we have but a second,
             Fill round the cup while you may!
          For Time, the churl hath beckon'd,
             And we must away, away.

     See the glass, how it flushes,
        Like some young Hebe's lip,
     And half meets thine, and blushes
        That thou shouldst delay to sip.
     Shame, oh shame unto thee,
        If ever thou see'st that day,
     When a cup or lip shall woo thee,
        And turn untouch'd away!
          Then, quick! we have but a second,
             Fill round, fill round while you may,
          For Time, the churl, hath beckoned
And we must away, away!

-o0o-

No.53

After the Sea-Ship

 Walt Whitman 1819-92

After the Sea-Ship - after the whistling winds;  

After the white-grey sails, taut to their spars and ropes,  

Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks, 

Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:  

Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,          

Waves, undulating waves - liquid, uneven, emulous waves,  

Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves, 

Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;  

Larger and smaller waves, in the spread of the ocean, yearnfully flowing;  

The wake of the Sea-Ship, after she passes - flashing and frolicsome, under the sun,   

A motley procession, with many a fleck of foam, and many fragments,  

Following the stately and rapid Ship - in the wake following.

-o0o-

No.52

O Mistress Mine, Where are you Roaming?

 (from Twelfth Night)

William Shakespeare 1564-1616

O mistress mine, where are you roaming? 

O stay and hear! your true-love's coming 

That can sing both high and low; 

Trip no further, pretty sweeting, 

Journey's end in lovers' meeting - 

Every wise man's son doth know. 

What is love? 'tis not hereafter; 

Present mirth hath present laughter; 

What's to come is still unsure: 

In delay there lies no plenty - 

Then come kiss me, Sweet and twenty, 

Youth's a stuff will not endure. 

-o0o-

No.51

Ships?

Maya Angelou 1928-2014

Ships?

Sure I’ll sail them

Show me the boat,

If it’ll float,

I’ll sail it.

Men?

Yes, I’ll love them.

If they’ve got style,

to make me smile,

I’ll love them.

Life?

‘Course I’ll live it.

Just enough breath,

Until my death,

And I’ll live it.

Failure?

I’m not ashamed to tell it,

I’ve never learned to spell it,

Not Failure.

-o0o-

No.50

A Magic Moment I Remember

Alexander Sergeyevich Poushkin 1799-1837

A magic moment I remember:

I raised my eyes and you were there,

A fleeting vision, the quintessence

Of all that's beautiful and rare.

I pray to mute despair and anguish,

To pursuits the vain world esteems,

Long did I hear your soothing accents,

Long did your features haunt my dreams. 

Time passed. A rebel storm-blast scattered

The reveries that once were mine

And I forgot your soothing accents,

Your features gracefully divine. 

In dark days of enforced retirement

I gazed upon grey skies above

With no ideals to inspire me

No one to cry for, live for, love. 

Then came a moment of renaissance,

I looked up - you again are there

A fleeting vision, the quintessence

Of all that's beautiful and rare.

-o0o-

No.49

PETALS

Amy Lowell 1874-1925

Life is a stream

On which we strew

Petal by petal the flower of our heart;

The end lost in dream,

They float past our view,

We only watch their glad, early start.

Freighted with hope,

Crimsoned with joy,

We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;

Their widening scope,

Their distant employ,

We never shall know. And the stream as it flows

Sweeps them away,

Each one is gone

Ever beyond into infinite ways.

We alone stay

While years hurry on,

The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

-o0o-

No.48

ODE TO AUTUMN

John Keats 1795-1821 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

-o0o-