Post your favorite poems.
>>7676553
i don't get /lit/'s infatuation with this poem, it's not that good
>>7676543
I don't know my favourite. But I like these threads and like to add to them.
Catullus 101 translated by Anne Carson
Many the peoples many the oceans I crossed --
I arrive at these poor, brother, burials
so I could give you the last gift owed to death
and talk (why?) with mute ash.
Now that Fortune tore you from me, you
oh poor (wrongly) brother (wrongly) taken from me,
now still anyway this -- what a distant mood of parents
handed down as the sad gift for burials --
accept! Soaked with tears of a brother
and into forever, brother, farewell and farewell.
>>7676625
>farewell and farewell
she done fucked up
>>7676543
BLACK SEA
--by Mark Strand
One clear night while the others slept, I climbed
the stairs to the roof of the house and under a sky
strewn with stars I gazed at the sea, at the spread of it,
the rolling crests of it raked by the wind, becoming
like bits of lace tossed in the air. I stood in the long,
whispering night, waiting for something, a sign, the approach
of a distant light, and I imagined you coming closer,
the dark waves of your hair mingling with the sea,
and the dark became desire, and desire the arriving light.
The nearness, the momentary warmth of you as I stood
on that lonely height watching the slow swells of the sea
break on the shore and turn briefly into glass and disappear . . .
Why did I believe you would come out of nowhere? Why with all
that the world offers would you come only because I was here?
'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kiking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
>>7676635
This is amazing. I got chills.
''When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.''
''Busque Amor novas artes, novo engenho,
para matar me, e novas esquivanças;
que não pode tirar me as esperanças,
que mal me tirará o que eu não tenho.
Olhai de que esperanças me mantenho!
Vede que perigosas seguranças!
Que não temo contrastes nem mudanças,
andando em bravo mar, perdido o lenho.
Mas, conquanto não pode haver desgosto
onde esperança falta, lá me esconde
Amor um mal, que mata e não se vê.
Que dias há que n'alma me tem posto
um não sei quê, que nasce não sei onde,
vem não sei como, e dói não sei porquê.''
'' Chi è questa che vèn, ch'ogn'om la mira,
che fa di clarità l'aer tremare
e mena seco Amor, s' che parlare
null'omo pote, ma ciascun sospira?
O Deo, che sembra quando li occhi gira,
dical' Amor, ch'i' nol savria contare:
cotanto d'umiltà donna mi pare,
ch'ogn'altra ver' di lei i' la chiam' ira.
Non si poria contar la sua piagenza,
ch'a le' s'inchin' ogni gentil vertute,
e la beltate per sua dea la mostra.
Non fu s' alta già la mente nostra
e non si pose 'n noi tanta salute,
che propiamente n'aviàn conoscenza.''
>>7676638
I like you.
>>7676543
W H Auden's "As I Walked Out One Evening"
AS I WALKED OUT ONE EVENING
by W.H Auden
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.
'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.
'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.
'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
'O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
Greater Love
Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!
Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.
Your voice sings not so soft,-
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,-
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear,
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.
Heart, you were never hot
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.
by Wilfred Owen
"The Divine Image" by William Blake
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.
I Self Lord and Master shall bring disaster to evil factors
Demonic chapters, shall be captured by Kings
Through the storms of days after
Unto the Earth from the Sun through triple darkness to blast ya
With a force that can't be compared
To any firepower, for it's mindpower shared
The brainwave, causes vessels to circulate
Like constellations reflect at night off the lake
Word to the father, and Mother Earth
Seeking everlasting life through this Hell for what it's worth
Look listen and observe
And watch another Cee Cipher pulling my peeps to the curb
Heed the words, it's like ghetto style proverbs
The righteous pay a sacrifice to get what they deserve
Cannot afford to be confined to a cell
Brainwaves swell, turning a desert to a well
Experience the best teacher
Thoughts will spray like street sweepers, little Daddy street preacher
Illustrious feature, narrator you select
Accompanied by Deck plus the DJ you respect
The seven and a half combined, over the front line
The ten percenters, promoting slander in the airtime
Bear in mind jewels be the tools of the trade
Sharp veins heavenly praise and dues are paid
"Shancoduff" - Patrick Kavanagh
My black hills have never seen the sun rising,
Eternally they look north towards Armagh.
Lot's wife would not be salt if she had been
Incurious as my black hills that are happy
When dawn whitens Glassdrummond chapel.
My hills hoard the bright shillings of March
While the sun searches in every pocket.
They are my Alps and I have climbed the Matterhorn
With a sheaf of hay for three perishing calves
In the field under the Big Forth of Rocksavage.
The sleety winds fondle the rushy beards of Shancoduff
While the cattle-drovers sheltering in the Featherna Bush
Look up and say: "Who owns them hungry hills
That the water-hen and snipe must have forsaken?
A poet? Then by heavens he must be poor."
I hear, and is my heart not badly shaken?
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky,
And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:
Uncurtaining the night, I'd let dark glass
Hang all the furniture above the grass,
And how delightful when a fall of snow
10 Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so
As to make chair and bed exactly stand
Upon that snow, out in that crystal land!
Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake
Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,
A dull dark white against the day's pale white
And abstract larches in the neutral light.
And then the gradual and dual blue
As night unites the viewer and the view,
And in the morning, diamonds of frost
20 Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed
From left to right the blank page of the road?
Reading from left to right in winter's code:
A dot, an arrow pointing back; repeat:
Dot, arrow pointing back...A pheasant's feet!
Torquated beauty, sublimated grouse,
Finding your China right behind my house.
Was he in Sherlock Holmes, the fellow whose
Tracks pointed back when he reversed his shoes?
All colors made me happy: even gray.
30 My eyes were such that literally they
Took photographs. Whenever I'd permit,
Or, with a silent shiver, order it,
Whatever in my field of vision dwelt--
An indoor scene, hickory leaves, the svelte
Stilettos of a frozen stillicide--
Was printed on my eyelids' nether side
Where it would tarry for an hour or two,
And while this lasted all I had to do
Was close my eyes to reproduce the leaves,
40 Or indoor scene, or trophies of the eaves.
I cannot understand why from the lake
I could make out our front porch when I'd take
Lake Road to school, whilst now, although no tree
Has intervened, Ilook but fail tosee
Even the roof. Maybe some quirk in space
Has caused a fold or furrow to displace
The fragile vista, the frame house between
Goldworth and Wordsmith on its square of green.
I had a favorite young shagbark there
50 With ample dark jade leaves and a black, spare
Vermiculated trunk. The setting sun
Bronzed the black bark, around which, like undone
Garlands, the shadows of the foliage fell.
It is now stout and rough; it has done well.
White butterflies turn lavender as they
Pass through its shade where gently seems to sway
The phantom of my little daughter's swing.
The house itself is much the same. One wing
We've had revamped. There's a solarium. There's
60 A picture window flanked with fancy chairs.
TV's huge paperclip now shines instead
Of the stiff vane so often visited
By the naive, the gauzy mockingbird
Retelling all the programs that she had heard;
Switching from chippo-chippo to a clear
To-wee, to-wee; then rasping out: come here,
Come here, come herrr'; flitting her tail aloft,
Or gracefully indulging in a soft
Upward hop-flop, and instantly (to-wee)
70 Returning to her perch--the new TV.
(cont)
I was an infant when my parents died.
They both were ornithologists. I've tried
So often to evoke them that today
I have a thousand parents. Sadly they
Dissolve in their own virtues and recede,
But certain words, chance words I hear or read,
Such as"bad heart" always to him refer,
And "cancer of the pancreas" to her.
A preterist: one who collects cold nests.
80 Here was my bedroom, now reserved for guests.
Here, tucked away by the Canadian maid,
I listened to the buzz downstairs and prayed
For everybody to be always well,
Uncles and aunts, the maid, her niece Adele,
Who'd seen the Pope, people in books, and God.
I was brought up by dear bizarre Aunt Maud,
A poet and a painter with a taste
For realistic objects interlaced
With grotesque growths and images of doom.
90 She lived to hear the next babe cry. Her room
We've kept intact. Its trivia create
A still life in her style: the paperweight
Of convex glass enclosing a lagoon,
The verse open at the Index (Moon,
Moonrise, Moor, Moral), the forlorn guitar
The human skull; and from the local Star
A curio: Red Sox Beat Yanks 5-4
On Chapman's Homer, thumbtacked to the door
My God they died young. Theolatry I found
100 Degrading, and its premises, unsound.
No free man needs a God; but was I free?
How fully I felt nature glued to me
And how my childish palate loved the taste
Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste
My picture book was at an early age
The painted parchment papering our cage:
Mauve rings around the moon; blood-orange sun;
Twinned Iris; and that rare phenomenon
The iridule--when beautiful and strange,
110 In a bright sky above a mountain range
One opal cloudlet in an oval form
Reflects the rainbow of a thunderstorm
Which in a distant valley has been staged--
For we are most artistically caged.
And there's the wall of sound: the nightly wall
Raised by a trillion crickets in the fall.
Impenetrable! Halfway up the hill
I'd pause in thrall of their delirious trill.
That's Dr. Sutton's light. That's the Great Bear.
120 A thousand years ago five minutes were
Equal to forty ounces of fine sand.
Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and
Infinite aftertime: above your head
They close like giant wings, and you are dead.
(cont)
The regular vulgarian, I daresay,
Is happier: He sees the Milky Way
Only when making water. Then as now
I walked at my own risk: whipped by the bough,
Tripped by the stump. Asthmatic, lame and fat,
130 I never bounced a ball or swung a bat.
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By feigned remoteness in the windowpane.
I had a brain, five senses (one unique),
But otherwise I was a cloutish freak.
In sleeping dreams I played with other chaps
But really envied nothing--save perhaps
The miracle of a lemniscate left
Upon wet sand by nonchalantly deft
Bicycle tires.
A thread of subtle pain,
140 Tugged at by playful death, released again,
But always present, ran through me. One day,
When I'd just turned eleven, as I lay
Prone on the floor and watched a clockwork toy--
A tin wheelbarrow and pushed by a tin boy--
Bypass chair legs and stray beneath the bed,
There was a sudden sunburst in my head.
And then black night. That blackness was sublime.
I felt distributed through space and time:
One foot upon a mountaintop, one hand
150 Under the pebbles of a panting strand,
One ear in Italy, one eye in Spain,
In caves, my blood, and the stars, my brain.
There were dull throbs in my Triassic; green
Optical spots in Upper Pleistocene,
An icy shiver down my Age of Stone,
And all tomorrows in my funny bone.
During one winter every afternoon
I'd into that momentary swoon.
And then it ceased. Its memory grew dim.
160 My health improved. I even learned to swim.
But like some little lad forced by a wench
With his pure tongue her abject thirst to quench,
I was corrupted, terrified, allured,
And though old Doctor Colt pronounced me cured
Of what, he said, were mainly growing pains,
The wonder lingers and the shame remains.
(cont)
Do not go gentle into that good night, -Dylan Thomas
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 that 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
There are two powers, two fateful powers.
We spend our lives under their ban.
From cradle to grave our lives are never ours.
They are Death and the Judgement of Man.
..........
You don't resist them, you just kneel
and they don't answer for their deeds.
They show no mercy. They don't heed
our protests. Their verdicts allow no appeal.
..........
Death's a gentleman who does not dissemble.
Unmoved by all considerations, he's of single mind.
He reaps his brethren, struggling or submitting blind
when beneath his scythe as equals they assemble.
..........
Society is different: disharmony and strife
this jealous leader will not tolerate.
He will not cut you honest and straight
but by the roots will rive your life.
..........
And woe to him, alas, twofold woe
to that youthful, energetic pride
which with smiling gaze and decisive stride
into that unequal battle dares to go.
..........
When, fatefully aware of all his rights,
with the blossoming courage which beauty has planted
in him, unflinching, by his task enchanted,
he encounters slander and he fights,
..........
no mask covers his eyes
He'll not be humbled, beaten, pushed.
See, from his brow he's brushed
abuse and menaces: 'Let them criticise!'
..........
Yes, woe to him: the more artless,
the more guilty he'll appear.
Such is the World: it plays the brute
where the guilt's more humanly sincere.
ALL
Speak: thy strong words may never pass away.
DEMOGORGON
This is the day which down the void abysm
At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,
And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep;
Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs 560
And folds over the world its healing wings.
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance--
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length,
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; 570
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life; Joy, Empire, and Victory!
Jag ärvde en mörk skog dit jag sällan går. Men det kommer en dag när de döda och de levande byter plats. Då sätter sig skogen i rörelse. Vi är inte utan hopp. De svåraste brotten förblir ouppklarade trots insats av många poliser. På samma sätt finns någonstans i våra liv en stor ouppklarad kärlek. Jag ärvde en mörk skog men i dag går jag i en annan skog, den ljusa. Allt levande sjunger slingrar viftar och kryper! Det är vår och luften är mycket stark. Jag har examen från glömskans universitet och är lika tomhänt som skjortan på tvättstrecket.
And so more than 10 people can read it:
I inherited a dark wood where I seldom go. But a day will come when the dead and the living trade places. The wood will be set in motion. We are not without hope. The most serious crimes will remain unsolved in spite of the efforts of many policemen. In the same way there is somewhere in our lives a great unsolved love. I inherited a dark wood, but today I’m walking in the other wood, the light one. All the living creatures that sing, wriggle, wag, and crawl! It’s spring and the air is very strong. I have graduated from the university of oblivion and am as empty-handed as the shirt on the clothesline.
>>7676543
Doves Flying from Gravel in the Cemetery
La Petite Maine, pouring silently
though Montaigu across the water-meadow.
I come up its banks, and through the stained gates.
Then strain for resurrection:
the notes of bones reshuffled,
if I listen. In this cold, careful cemetery,
still since November.
But now the air is brought to life. By
the hush of wings
rising from crunched gravel
pathways. Rock doves sweep over the close railings.
Their quiet circle through the covered sky
so easy it leaves
behind only
white above grey:
a line of water winding below and the chalk of
soſt birds becoming smudged over the elms.
Flight out of the blind; barely heard.
Then back to that autumn day on the Rue des Fleurs,
soundless while cornering
flint walls to find your marker,
passing regards to wrought-iron graves.
Some newly raised;
all of us working on the silence.
>>7676638
Yep, by far the best of the Ariel Poems and one of the better moments of the later Eliot imo. 'I should be glad of another death.' What power in that end!
>>7680096
Better than Marina? Really? Do you really think that?
>>7676543
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zx5exP5gyI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS4FA6Pnjrw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2BULDi00xM
>>7680115
Yes,I find Marina touch overblown, which is also true of much of the later Eliot. Part of what I like about Journey of the Magi is that the tone and, somewhat paradoxically, the religiosity is a little more subdued. I find that late Eliot is a little like a dish with a really strong flavor: it's very nice for a little while, but by the end of the poem you're quite exhausted. I also admit to not really understanding Marina: I don't know Latin (although I could deduce that the quote is asking something about the location), and I don't know where it comes from. Perhaps if I understood the context better, I'd have a somewhat better opinion of it.
>>7680227
Marina is the name of pericles daughter in a Greek myth and Shakespeare play. She was thought to have drowned by her father.
I think this poem is about an old man in his last days before death. When you lucidly remember the past, thing you may not even consciously remember.
This was written when Eliot was older and may be about his own childlessness.
>>7680272
Oh, of course, I should've made that connection. Well, that does make it a little more interesting. Still I have a high opinion of Journey of the Magi among Eliot's later works.
>>7680281
That was my take on marina above and I like journey of the magi better too. Im not the original guy talking about it.
The Latin says something like "where is this place, what region, what (something)"
>Ctrl F
>No Shane Koyczan
>jfc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kKh1es5vBQ
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
-Philip Larkin
Cut the top off, call it Amber Rose
Just bought a big body, time to paint the toes
Known to act a donkey on the camel-toe
Then take the camel-toe and turn it into casserole
-Tauheed Epps
2 Chainz talking on the FLX phone
Poof, just like that the whole check gone
Former Posturepedic I was slept on
So many chains on it look like my neck gone
My girl came through and brought an extra body
Now that's an after party for the after party
Two-gun gang, all-black Ferrari
His and her Armani, put it in her tummy
And yeah, the bread good if the head good
Before Benihana's it was canned goods
Before canned goods it was Similac
I'm from where they send shots then we send em back
A half a million dollars worth of crack money
Wrap your parents up, now you got a black Mommy
Yeah I did it, true to my religion
Two guns on me, both with extensions
If you on the pole, play your position
I got enough dough to pay your tuition
Corduroy Trues, with the skull cap
I just woke up, tell me where the drugs at
And after the drugs, where the girls at
And after the girls, where the love at
And if it ain't no love, I'm like fuck that
Nigga I'm so dope, you could catch a fucking contact
Variation on the Word Sleep
Margaret Atwood, 1939
I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiK7C3wrKGU
My thoughts 'n' oughts are nothing fixed
Hooray!
for Joy's the world that's downed unmixed
this way!
and all who'd be good mates of mine
to clink 'n' drink just suit me fine
for lees of life and wine!
I'd trained my trade on gold 'n' gain
Hooray!
but so I sold my joy for pain;
I say,
the coins were rolling here and there,
but every time I chased a where
the here was over there.
To women then I gave my heart
O belles!
but how those damsels made me smart
o hells!
The false were true to others, true,
but true ones bored me through and through;
the best ... were not for woo.
Next, I thought I ought to roam
Hooray!
but then I lost my ways of home,
that way,
and nothing seemed to suit me quite,
the board was bad, the bed a fright,
and no one got me right.
I tuned my dream to name and fame
Excel!
but better men put me to shame
O hell!
or when I gave some good I had
they made me out to be a cad;
my good was worse than bad.
I sought the right in battle might
Hooray!
and often was our might so right
(hooray!)
the enemy's land was ours to run;
but still the score was won to none,
and a leg became undone.
So now I call my calling nought
So what!
The world's all mine that comes unsought
that's what!
Now that it's song and sup all day,
come clink 'n' drink me all the way
these lees to the last hooray!
http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/94588406825/and-me-im-no-stranger-to-culms-of-bamboo-in
