English

In the seven-times taken and re-taken town
Peace! The mind stops; sense argues against sense.
The August sun is ghostly in the street
As if the Silence of a thousand years
Were its familiar. All is as it was
At the instant of the shattering: flat-thrown walls;
Dislocated rafters; lintels blown awry
And toppling over; what were windows, mere
Gapings on mounds of dust and shapelessness;
Charred posts caught in a bramble of twisted iron;
Wires sagging tangled across the street; the black
Skeleton of a vine, wrenched from the old house

Where is the land that fathered, nourished, poured
The sap of a strong race into your veins,
Land of wide tilth, of farms and granaries stored,
Of old towers chiming over peaceful plains?

It is become a vision, barred away
Like light in cloud, a memory and belief
On those lost plains the Glory of yesterday
Builds her dark towers for the bells of Grief.

It is become a splendour-circled name
For all the world; a torch against the skies
Burns on that blood-spot, the unpardoned shame

this postcard has the Christmas
spirit with its Lutheran
steeple between the hills
its cow fence its fir tree
and a dirt farm in Thuringia

bright star,
unto you is born
this day a grub

Would'st thou this monster, that we name the world,
Who round the envied tree of blissful fruit
Lies like a dragon curled
In jealous watch, our venture to dispute;
Would'st thou that she were smoothly negligent,
By any pleader bent,
A tender judge, to tears and pity prone,
She that on love defeated builds her throne,
The spoiler strong, sanguine with our despairs,
She that the traitor in us holds in fee,
Rich with our woes, with our fears cruel, she
Whose easy wisdom the sad heart ensnares?

There's no living with you
when you pass yourself off as an interpreter.
For whom is this game played?

Are you less entitled to imagination
than the poet?


Django on a borrowed string,
I'll vote for that!

There is a hegemony
of mother
where the cucumber is real
but between my house
and yours
null turns into Titania
and a star
is not literal.

Thou lofty mirror, Truth, let me be shown
Such as I am, in body and in mind;
Hair plainly red, retreating now behind;
Of stature tall, head bent and looking prone;
A meagre body on two stilts of bone;
Fair skin, blue eyes, good air, nose well defined,
Mouth handsome, teeth such as are rare to find,
And paler in the face than king on throne.

Now harsh and bitter, pleasant now and mild;
A quickly roused yet no malignant foe;
My heart, and mind, and self, never in tune;
Sad for the most part, then in such a flow

In the next hundred years
No one will ever point
To a great man's birth place.
This is the room that interferes
With national monuments.

To an apple-woman's stall
Once some children nimbly ran;
Longing much to purchase all,
They with joyous haste began
Snatching up the piles there raised,
While with eager eyes they gazed
On the rosy fruit so nice;
But when they found out the price,
Down they threw the whole they'd got,
Just as if they were red hot.

The man who gratis will his goods supply
Will never find a lack of folks to buy!

My trust in nothing now is placed,
Hurrah!
So in the world true joy I taste,
Hurrah!
Then he who would be a comrade of mine
Must rattle his glass, and in chorus combine,
Over these dregs of wine.

I placed my trust in gold and wealth,
Hurrah!
But then I lost all joy and health,
Lack-a-day!
Both here and there the money roll'd,
And when I had it here, behold,
From there had fled the gold!

I placed my trust in women next,
Hurrah!
But there in truth was sorely vex'd,
Lack-a-day!