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Invictus
by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.




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


THE IVY GREEN
by: Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

OH, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim:
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a staunch old heart has he.
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings
To his friend the huge Oak Tree!
And slyly he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves,
As he joyously hugs and crawleth round
The rich mould of dead men's graves.
Creeping where grim death hath been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Whole ages have fled and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old Ivy shall never fade,
From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant, in its lonely days,
Shall fatten upon the past:
For the stateliest building man can raise
Is the Ivy's food at last.
Creeping on where time has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.


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


Harmonie du Soir

Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu'on afflige;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir.
Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu'on afflige,
Un coeur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir!
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir;
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige.
Un coeur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir,
Du passé lumineux recueille tout vestige!
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige...
Ton souvenir en moi luit comme un ostensoir!
— Charles Baudelaire
Now in English...
Evening Harmony
The season is at hand when swaying on its stem
Every flower exhales perfume like a censer;
Sounds and perfumes turn in the evening air;
Melancholy waltz and languid vertigo!

Every flower exhales perfume like a censer;
The violin quivers like a tormented heart;
Melancholy waltz and languid vertigo!
The sky is sad and beautiful like an immense altar.
The violin quivers like a tormented heart,
A tender heart, that hates the vast, black void!
The sky is sad and beautiful like an immense altar;
The sun has drowned in his blood which congeals...
A tender heart that hates the vast, black void
Gathers up every shred of the luminous past!
The sun has drowned in his blood which congeals...
Your memory in me glitters like a monstrance!






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

Reluctance


Reluctance
By Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.


And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?


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


The Lost Mistress

Robert Browning



All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day;
One day more bursts them open fully
--You know the red turns gray.

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we,--well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:

For each glance of the eye so bright and black.
Though I keep with heart's endeavour,--
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul for ever!--

Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!



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

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

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