Dead Poets and Dark Caves

While this poet is not dead, as all the poets here are, she is talented. From the first line I was captured. Read and I think you'll see what I'm talking about.

A twitter friend, a fellow writer and a coffee obsessive buddy. And they said nothing good would come of Twitter.

A Sense of Absence

by Blue Summer



The moment’s full
of nearly dead deceptions,
and they are slick like glass, sharp
as shame in the morning, busy
lapping up their own intentions,
struggling to sustain
what cannot be salvaged.

Every word spoken
leaves a hole, a vacancy,
a thick absence.
And you stood—
And I stood—
but we were both
in different places, tangled
in that tight wire
neither of us could see—
but it’s the feeling that counts,
isn’t it?

In the end, it doesn’t matter,
not as I once thought. These openings
dissolve too quickly, and feelings
are inflamed, shut out, and shut off,
half their old size, bent
into nothing and beyond it.

Something’s slid shut, convincingly
uprooting things that were never there,
and I’m left
in the cold blue moonlight, eyes full
of deep faults and blooming ice,
stuck in a rift
of apprehensive disappointment,
heartsick with these dwindling promises
and raging indifference.

At last,
I am made of terror, but the red, wincing fear,
clawed and bloody, is as untouchable
as a myth, but as abrupt
as a broken sentence. We have been
stripped out
of ourselves and each other,
and there’s no untangling
the bright monster who killed us both.






"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

The Haunted Place
by Edgar Allan Poe



In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace-
Radiant palace- reared its head.
In the monarch
Thought's dominion-
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!



Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This- all this- was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.


Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
\(Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh- but smile no more.


"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

THE MOON
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)


I.

And, like a dying lady lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky east
A white and shapeless mass.

II.

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

Le globe lumineux et frêle
Prend un grand essor,
Crève et crache son âme grêle
Comme un songe d'or.


J'entends le crâne à chaque bulle
Prier et gémir:—
«Ce jeu féroce et ridicule,
Quand doit-il finir?

Car ce que ta bouche cruelle

Eparpille en l'air,

Monstre assassin, c'est ma cervelle,

Mon sang et ma chair!»

Et maintenant dans l'anglais pour mes amis qui ne lisent pas Français!






Cupid and the Skull
by Charles Baudelaire and translated by William Aggeler




An Old Lamp Base

Cupid is seated on the skull
Of Humanity;
On this throne the impious one
With the shameless laugh

Is gaily blowing round bubbles
That rise in the air
As if they would rejoin the globes
At the ether's end.

The sphere, fragile and luminous,
Takes flight rapidly,
Bursts and spits out its flimsy soul
Like a golden dream.

I hear the skull groan and entreat
At every bubble:
"When is this fierce, ludicrous game
To come to an end?

Because what your pitiless mouth
Scatters in the air,
Monstrous murderer — is my brain,
My flesh and my blood!"




"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a french poet--some argue one of the greatest french poets of the 19Th century-- who was given the surnom of 'the father of modern criticism,' shocked the Conservatives with his unveiled view of lust and decay. Baudelaire was the first to assimilate modern, artificial, and decadent--was on the side of artificiality, saying that vices are natural and essentially selfish where virtue are artificial because one put forth an conscious effort and restraint in order to be good. To Baudelaire the snobbishly controlled and the dandy were heroes and the ultimate proof of meaningless existence. He was a gentleman who never became vulgar and remained a cool collected smile.
His life was not an easy one, death, sadness and an estranged relationship with his mother after her third marriage, he was sent to boarding school and was expelled. His true passion since childhood was to live by his pen but still he enrolled in Law school, around this time he became addicted to Opium and later contracted lethal syphilis. His debts piled higher and higher around him and he left his studies and never returned.
From 1852 to 1865 he was occupied in translating Edgar Allan Poe's writings. In Poe, Baudelaire found a kindred spirit (Now you probably know why I like him. Anyone who loves Poe is aces in my book). When his Les Fleurs du Mal(The Flowers of Bad) came out all the people who had a hand in the work- author, printer, and publisher -were prosecuted and found guilty of obscenity and blasphemy. In this controversial book he transfers his guilt, sins and lies on the reader making them feel just as the poet felt. Waving the truth before their eyes and shedding the blinders with words, what powerful words, "If poison, arson, sex, narcotics, knives / have not yet ruined us and stitched their quick, / loud patterns on the canvas of our lives, / it is because our souls are still too sick."

With out further ado...the poem!

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

Lucifer in Starlight
George Meredith (1828–1909)

ON a starr’d night Prince Lucifer uprose.
Tir’d of his dark dominion swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball in cloud part screen’d,
Where sinners hugg’d their spectre of repose.
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
And now upon his Western wing he lean’d,
Now his huge bulk o’er Africa careen’d,
Now the black planet shadow’d Arctic snows.
Soaring through wider zones that prick’d his scars
With memory of the old revolt from Awe,
He reach’d a middle height, and at the stars,
Which are the brain of heaven, he look’d, and sank.
Around the ancient track march’d, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

Venus and Adonis

I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my dear;
Feed where thou wilt, on the mountians or in dale;
Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

Yes, that Shakespeare class turned me from a girl who kind of got what he was saying to the girl who reads his words and thinks 'If only he were alive today, I'd so make that man mine!'

Happy sunday my friends!

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

The Sun Rising
by John Donne

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."
She's all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

To A STRANGER
by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.



"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AND FAIR
by Lord Byron

AND thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I lov'd, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
'T is Nothing that I lov'd so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.


"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

The Triple Fool
by John Donne

I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry ;
But where's that wise man, that would not be I,
If she would not deny ?
Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes
Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my pains
Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.
Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

But when I have done so,
Some man, his art and voice to show,
Doth set and sing my pain ;
And, by delighting many, frees again
Grief, which verse did restrain.
To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,
But not of such as pleases when 'tis read.
Both are increasèd by such songs,
For both their triumphs so are published,
And I, which was two fools, do so grow three.
Who are a little wise, the best fools be.


"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

I have been feeling increasingly poetic as of late, as at any moment I'll begin to spout sonnets. So in order to spare my "Killing Moon" I'll settle for posting a bit of poetry. Enjoy the master of the arts, his expert words and his lovely visage to the left hand side.(What a stud!)

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

The Sleeper by Edgar Allen Poe

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!–and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!

O, lady bright! can it be right-
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop-
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully–so fearfully-
Above the closed and fringed lid'
Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,
That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come O'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress,
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps!
Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps!
Oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold-
Some vault that oft has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back
,Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

All morning in the strawberry field

They talked about the Russians.

Squatted down between the rows

We listened.

We heard the head woman say,

'Bomb them off the map.'

Horseflies buzzed,

paused and stung.

And the taste of strawberries

Turned thick and sour.

Mary said slowly,

'I've got a fella Old enough to go.

If anything should happen...'

The sky was high and blue.

Two children laughed at tagIn the tall grass,

Leaping awkward and long-legged

Across the rutted road.

The fields were full of bronzed young men

Hoeing lettuce, weeding celery.

'The draft is passed,' the woman said.

'We ought to have bombed them long ago.'

'Don't,' pleaded the little girl

With blond braids.

Her blue eyes swam with vague terror.

She added petishly, 'I can't see why

You're always talking this way...

''Oh, stop worrying, Nelda,

'Snapped the woman sharply.

She stood up, a thin commanding figure

In faded dungarees.

Businesslike she asked us,

'How many quarts?'

She recorded the total in her notebook,

And we all turned back to picking.

Kneeling over the rows,

We reached among the leaves

With quick practiced hands,

Cupping the berry protectively before

Snapping off the stem

Between thumb and forefinger.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

So I have been neglecting this blog like a middle child, but I have a poem for you lovely people kind enough to follow. Enjoy!

You think you know; but not a soul does

Hiding in the shadows and under dust

Gliding past you unnoticed

Biding it's time , waiting in silence

Tormenting you with, night after night

To face the lurking beast; your heart's desire

Sliping from your bed at God's knows what hour

Banish the darkness with the filcker of light

but in that corner lies nothing more than the reflection of fire

Yield your search and curiosity retire

No good can come from seeing that not meant for your eyes

The sun is rising and with it goes your chance to catch

That beast, no man was ever meant to catch.

I
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimneypots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.



II
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades
That times resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.



III
You tossed a blanket from the bed
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed's edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.



IV
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great And would suffice.

Robert Frost



"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been- a most familiar bird-
Taught me my alphabet to say-
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child- with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings-
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away- forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.



"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

On the Beach at Night by Walt Whitman



ON the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.



Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.



From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.



Weep not, child,Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.



Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?



Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.

I have a certain soft spot for Walt Whitman, I don't know why, I just know that I so.
"Weep not my child" brighter days are just beyond the horizon.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

A Cliff Dwelling

There sandy seems the golden sky
And golden seems the sandy plain.
No habitation meets the eye
Unless in the horizon rim,
Some halfway up the limestone wall,
That spot of black is not a stain
Or shadow, but a cavern hole,
Where someone used to climb and crawl
To rest from his besetting fears.
I see the callus on his soul
The disappearing last of him
And of his race starvation slim,
Oh years ago - ten thousand years

Tell me what you think.

"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper."-Robert Frost

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal by Alfred Tennyson



Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.


Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.


Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.


Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.


Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.







"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

Fear No More
William Shakespeare

Fear no more the heat o' the sun;
Nor the furious winter's rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney sweepers come to dust.

Fear no more the frown of the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dread thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'm excited for the Super Bowl
How 'bout you?

My Steelers are gonna kick your butt
and make you bleed
A perfect Sunday
what more could you want or need?

Brown Penny
William Butler Yeats

I whispered, ‘I am too young,’
And then, ‘I am old enough’;
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
‘Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.’
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

Oh! je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes

Des jours heureux où nous étions amis

En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle,

Et le soleil plus brûlant qu’aujourd’hui

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle

Tu vois, je n’ai pas oublié...

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,

Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi

Et le vent du nord les emporte

Dans la nuit froide de l’oubli.

Tu vois, je n’ai pas oublié

La chanson que tu me chantais.





C’est une chanson qui nous ressemble

Toi, tu m’aimais et je t’aimais

Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble

Toi qui m’aimais, moi qui t’aimais

Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment

Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit

Et la mer efface sur le sable

Les pas des amants désunis.




Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,

Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi

Mais mon amour silencieux et fidèle

Sourit toujours et remercie la vie

Je t’aimais tant, tu étais si jolie,

Comment veux-tu que je t’oublie?

En ce temps-là, la vie était plus belle

Et le soleil plus brûlant qu’aujourd’hui

Tu étais ma plus douce amie

Mais je n’ai que faire des regrets

Et la chanson que tu chantais

Toujours, toujours je l’entendrai!





Dead Leaves



Oh, I would like you so much to remember

Those happy days when we were friends, and how

Life in those times was more lovely and tender,

Even the sun shone more brightly than now.

Dead leaves are gathering as in December

You see how one never forgets...

Dead leaves are gathering as in December,

Just like the memories and the regrets.

And then the north wind comes and sweeps them

Into oblivion’s icy night.

You see how I never forgot

That old song that you sang for me.



A song like us, birds of a feather,

You loving me, me loving you,

And we lived happily together,

You loving me, me loving you.

But life tears apart gentle lovers

Who quietly obey their heart,

And the sea invades the sand and covers

The footsteps of those torn apart.



Dead leaves are gathering, dead leaves are piling

Up just like memories and like regrets.

But still my love goes on quietly smiling

Thankful for life and for all that it gets.

I loved you so, you were ever so lovely,

How can I forget? Tell me how!

Life in those times was more sweet and beguiling,

Even the sun shone more brightly than now.

You were my most sweet friend and lover

,But regret is all that I can do,

And I’ll keep on hearing the song

That I used to hear sung by you.

All the Dead Dears


Sylvia Plath



In the Archaeological Museum in Cambridge is a stone


coffin of the fourth century A.D. containing the skeletons


of a woman, a mouse and a shrew. The ankle-bone of the


woman has been slightly gnawed.



Rigged poker -stiff on her back


With a granite grin


This antique museum-cased lady


Lies, companioned by the gimcrack


Relics of a mouse and a shrew


That battened for a day on her ankle-bone.



These three, unmasked now, bear


Dry witness


To the gross eating game


We'd wink at if we didn't hear


Stars grinding, crumb by crumb,


Our own grist down to its bony face.



How they grip us through think and thick,


These barnacle dead!


This lady here's no kin


Of mine, yet kin she is: she'll suck


Blood and whistle my narrow clean


To prove it.


As I think now of her hand,
From the mercury-backed glass


Mother, grandmother, greatgrandmother


Reach hag hands to haul me in,


And an image looms under the fishpond surface


Where the daft father went down


With orange duck-feet winnowing this hair ---



All the long gone darlings: They


Get back, though, soon,


Soon: be it by wakes, weddings,


Childbirths or a family barbecue:


Any touch, taste, tang's


Fit for those outlaws to ride home on,



And to sanctuary: usurping the armchair


Between tick


And tack of the clock, until we go,


Each skulled-and-crossboned Gulliver


Riddled with ghosts, to lie


Deadlocked with them, taking roots as cradles rock.

There is another sky by Emily Dickinson

There is another sky,

Ever serene and fair,

And there is another sunshine,

Though it be darkness there;

Never mind faded forests, Austin,

Never mind silent fields -

Here is a little forest,

Whose leaf is ever green;

Here is a brighter garden,

Where not a frost has been;

In its unfading flowers

I hear the bright bee hum:

Prithee, my brother,

Into my garden come!


Ponder this...Come to a place where nothing has been harmed, nothing ruined by sadness or silent questions, come here to my garden where all is well and nothing can hurt us.

Dream with in a Dream
Edgar Allen Poe


Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem