The sun had brighten'd Cheviot grey,
The sun had brighten'd the Carter's side;
And soon beneath the rising day
Smil'd Branksome towers and Teviot's side
The wild birds told their warbling tale,
And waken'd every flower that blows,
And peeped forth the violet pale,
And spread her breast the mountain rose.
And lovelier than the rose so red,
Yet paler than the violet pale,
She early left her sleepless bed,
The fairest maid of Tiviotdale.

Why does fair Margaret so early awake,
And don her kirtle so hastilie;
And the silken knots, which in hurry she would make,
Why tremble her slender fingers to tie;
Why does she stop and look often around,
As she glides down the secret stair;
And why does she pat the shaggy blood-hound,
As he rouses him up from his lair;
And, though she passes the postern alone,
Why is the watchman's bugle blown?

The Ladye steps in doubt and dread,
Lest her watchful mother hear her tread;
The Ladye caresses the rough blood-hound,
Lest his voice should waken the castle round;
The watchman's bugle is not blown,
For he was her foster-father's son;
And she glides through the greenwood at dawn of light,
To meet Baron Henry, her own true knight.

The Knight and Ladye fair are met,
And under the hawthorn's boughs are set.
A fairer pair were never seen
To meet beneath the hawthorn green.
He was stately, and young, and tall;
Dreaded in battle, and lov'd in hall:
And she, when love, scarce told, scarce hid,
Lent to her cheek a livelier red;
When the half sigh her swelling breast
Against the silken ribbon prest;
When her blue eyes their secret told,
Though shaded by her locks of gold--
Where would you find the preerless fair,
With Margaret of Branksome might compare!




Sir Walter Scott
From The Lay of the Last Minstrel
II.XXV-XXVIII

Farewell to Thee Muse

Enchantress, farewell, who do oft has decoy'd me,
At the close of the evening through woodlands to roam,

Where the forester, 'lated, with wonder espied me
Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home.
Farewell, and take with thee thy numbers wild speaking

The language alternate of rapture and woe:

Oh! none but some lover, whose heartstrings are breaking,

The pang that I feel at our parting can know.

Each joy couldst double, and when there come sorrow,

Or pale disappointment to darken my way,

What voice was like thine, that could sing of to-morrow,

Til forgot in the strain was the grief of to-day!

But when friends drop around us in life's weary waning,

The grief, Queen of Numbers, thou canst not assuage;

Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remaining,

The languor of pain, and the chillness of age.

'Twas thou that once taught me in accents bewailing,

To sing how a warrior lay stretched on the plain,

And a maiden hung o'er him with aid unavailing,

And held to his lips the cold goblet in vain;

As vain thy enchantments, O Queen of wild Numbers,

To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o'er,

And the quick pulse of feeling in apathy slumbers--

Farewell, then, Enchantress! I meet thee no more!

1812, Sir Walter Scott

A Valentine's Day song

How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.

(oho)

White his shroud as the mountain snow
Larded with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the ground did not go
With true-love showers.

Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day.
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donned his clothes,
And dupped the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

By Gis and by Saint Charity
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't;
By Cock they are to blame.

Quoth she, 'Before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.'"
He answers, 'So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
And thou hadst not come to my bed.'


~Shakespeare

Isolation

People say we got it made
Don’t they know we’re so afraid?
Isolation.
We’re afraid to be alone
Everybody got to have a home
Just a boy and a little girl
Trying to change the whole wide world
The world is just a little town
Everybody trying to put us down
I don’t expect you to understand
After you’ve caused so much pain
But then again, you’re not to blame
You’re just a human, a victim of the insane
We’re afraid of everyone
Afraid of the sun
The sun will never disappear
But the world may not have many years
Isolation

~John Lennon

The Fire King

Bold knights and fair dames, to my harp give an ear,
Of love, and of war, and of wonder to hear;
And you haply may sigh, in the midst of your glee,
At the tale of Count Albert, and fair Rosalie.

O see you that castle, so strong and so high?
And see you that lady, the tear in her eye?
And see you that palmer from Palestine's land,
The shell on his had, and the staff in his hand?



~Sir Walter Scott

The Lay of the Last Minstrel

The way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;
His wither'd cheek, and tresses gray,
Seem'd to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy.
The last of all the Bards was he,
Who sung of Border chivalry;
For, welladay! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he neglected and oppress'd
Wish'd to be with them, and at rest.
No more on prancing palfrey borne,
He caroll'd, light as lark at morn;
No longer courted and caress'd,
High placed in hall, a welcome uest,
He pour'd to lord and lady gay
The unpremeditated lay:
Old times were changed, old manners gone;
A stranger fill'd the Stuarts' throne;
The bigots of the iron time
Had call'd his harmless art a crime.
A wandering Harper, scorn'd and poor,
He begg'd his bread from door to door,
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.


~The beginning of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" by Sir Walter Scott

Ophelia

I:

Where the stars sleep in the calm black stream
like some great lily, pale Ophelia floats,
slowly floats, wound in her veils like dream.
- half heard in the woods, halloos from distant throats.

A thousand years sad Ophelia gone
glimmering on the water, a phantom fair;
a thousand years her soft distracted song
has waked the answering evening air.

the wind kisses her breasts and shakes
her long veils lying softly on the stream;
the shivering willows weep upon her cheeks;
across her dreaming brows the rushes lean.

the wrinkled water lilies round her sigh;
and once she wakes a nest of sleeping things
and hears the tiny sound of frightened wings;
mysterious music falls from the starry sky.

II.

O pale Ophelia, beautiful as snow!
Yes, die, child, die, and drift away to the sea!
for from the peaks of Norway cold winds blow
and whisper low of bitter liberty;

For a breath that moved your long heavy hair
brought strange sounds to your wandering thoughts;
your heart heard Natures singing everywhere,
in the sighs of trees and the whispering of night.

For the voice of the seas, endless and immense,
breaks your young breast, too human and too sweet;
for on an April morning a pale young prince,
poor lunatic, sat wordless at your feet!

Sky! Love! Liberty! What a dream, poor young
Thing! you sank before him, snow before fire,
your own great vision strangling your tongue,
Infinity flaring in you blue eye!

III

And the Poet says that by starlight you came
to pick the flowers you loved so much at night,
and he saw, wound in her veils like a dream,
like some great lily, pale Ophelia float.


by Arthur Rimbaud
translated by Paul Schmidt



http://sisyphusatrest.blogspot.com/
Excellent blog, I might add.

I wish I was by that dim Lake,
where sinful souls their farewell take
of this vain world, and half way lie
in death's cold shadow, ere they die.
There, there, far from thee,
deceitful world, my home should be;
where, come what might of gloom and pain,
false hope should ne'er deceive again.

The lifeless sky, the mournful sound
of unseen waters falling round;
the dry leaves, quiv'ring o'er my head,
like man, unquiet ev'n when dead!
These, ay, these shall wean
my soul from life's deluding scene,
and turn each thought, o'ercharged with gloom,
like willows, downwards towards the tomb.

As they, who to their couch at night
would win repose, first quench the light,
so must the hopes, that keep this breast
Awake, be quench'd, ere it can rest.
Cold, cold, this heart must grow,
unmoved by either joy or woe,
like freezing founts, where all that's thrown
within their current turns to stone.

~ Thomas Peacock










http://madmonklaboratory.blogspot.com/

To be alone is what I want
Shut away where no one can find me,
So I might stop this ceaseless thing
And have no tears to remind me.

Asylum

Let me retreat.
Retreat into the asylum of
My eyelids.
The world is spinning.
The world spins to laugh.

It laughs at me.

I take another slug of my coke.
And try to be civil.
How can I be?
So lame! How can anyone
Be so lame?!

But it is I who am the lame one.

An all-nighter.
As if before wasn't bad enough?

And 10 pages yet to go!

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact.

-William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream

There is a willow grows aslant the brook,
That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream,
There with fantastic garlands did she make
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb'ring to hang, an envious silver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook, her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and endued
Unto that element, but long it could not be
Till that her garments heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet 4.7.137-154

Truth

You are the wind.
I am an ember.
When we are together,
We are a flame.
But when we are separate,
You are free.
You are the wind.
And I am a dying ember.

Ashley's Foreign Language

Kochadicka baraxeem
landa cierco
Mondo sokokay marando
Heintoro sparktikko
Cokcoo bestuch und oon mookay
kokay maracho mustubuch(x)

baratockoeiva
marackoy
marllotock o eiento

eex maralocoeitner
inteordo marladiengo
mienles oeigneoeirne
eirnieorinueo

xiem bara toko
xiem bara malo

---------------------------

ls mie fokus now
keir hiendo marada leistt
not onto shey pau
und deck xieo

kirnto barata
onud onbaraba

kien son unod liento bara

kier partsto baragiendo.

palapartlo lod donno
bunno lardo mariendoeneoeh


barl
salvara pattero, moto con par

okay, no con pieh doro biesta
paykay?
parklondo kay?

undo burrundo gai.

( R's are rolled, o's sound like "ooh...I get it", u's are oooos...a's are aahhs, x's are the swallowed "h" as the Russian letter x. I pronounce the L's to be swallowed like in Russian, as well, but she doesn't swallow all of them. The ends of words tend to be foreward, and she swallows the beginnings.)

(It is customary for them to pull on your ears and say some small, cute phrase twice. Then they roll down the hill)

Kunda bieta und nuprao
Unda burral kto.

kiennord nushte
kunda bastabre
dunte keista matoradne
bietar ocksta bukando indushto
ichanoduck.
ickonardbodockstucka
kiento paparotkeh meda toch
hiena.
Koh.
Kienta kokom
keinta bruostock
mendomockono
tiena

honda pock esto parayest
arlmentoh.

brunlushk up onde marodeh
kieck alnora baech
alno barakay

kierdo baratai
ichesto barakae.

kunta cobacka ei
kiek pot tushto miendo barakay

kok parka barakay
mustonarka malankay.

-Ashley Madsen

Three Children

Three children (their names were so fearful
You'll excuse me for leaving them out)
Sat silent, with faces all tearful--
What was it all about?

They were sewing but needles are prickly,
And fingers were cold as could be--
So they didn't get on very quickly,
And they wept, silly Three!

"O Mother!" said they, "Guilford's not a
Nice place for winter, that's flat.
If you know any country that's hotter,
Please take us to that!"

"Cease crying," said she, "little daughter!
And when summer comes back with the flowers,
You shall roam by the edge of the water,
In sunshiny hours."

"And in summer," said sorrowful Mary,
"We shall hear the shrill scream of the train
That will bring that dear writer of fairy-
tales hither again."

(Now the person she means to allude to
Was--well! it is best to forget.
It was some one she always was rude to,
Whenever they met.)

"It's my duty," their Mother continued,
"To fill with things useful and right
Your small minds; if I put nothing in, you'd
Be ignorant quite.

"But enough now for lessons and thinkin:
Your meal is quite ready, I see--
So attend to your eating and drinking,
You thirsty young Three!"

-Lewis Carroll, Apr. 10, 1871
For a Miss Mary Watson

Still she haunts me, phantomwise
Alice moving under skies,
Never seen by waking eyes.

~Lewis Carroll

O Silly One

O silly sullen girl,
Why sitteth thou in the corner?
What hast thou done?
Dry those telltale tears.
Come out of hiding.
The sun is here!
Thou art merry now,
No reason at all to be sad.

No frowns, put them away!
Bring out the smiles!
Silly, silly sullen girl.
Why willst thou not cooperate!?