1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

3 Surely against me is he turned;
he turneth his hand against me all the day.

4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old;
he hath broken my bones.

5 He hath builded against me,
and compassed me with gall and travail.

6 He hath set me in dark places,
as they that be dead of old.

7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out:
he hath made my chain heavy.

1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob,
and hath not pitied:
he hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
he hath brought them down to the ground:
he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:

1 How doth the city sit solitary,
that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow!
She that was great among the nations,
and princess among the provinces,
how is she become tributary!

2 She weepeth sore in the night,
and her tears are on her cheeks:
among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
they are become her enemies.

3 Judah is gone into captivity
because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
she dwelleth among the heathen,

Li preti, già sse sa, fanno la caccia
A 'gni sorte de spece de quadrini.
Mo er mi' curato ha messo du' carlini
De murta a chi vò dì 'na parolaccia.

Toccò a me l'antra sera a la Pilaccia:
Ché giucanno co certi vitturini,
Come me vedde vince un lammertini,
Disse pe ffoja: "Eh buggiarà Ssantaccia!"

Er giorn'appresso er prete già informato,
Mannò a ffamme chiamà dar chiricone,
E m'intimò la pena der peccato.

Sur primo io vorze dì le mi' raggione;
Ma ppoi me la sbrigai: "Padre Curato,

O mother mine, Dau (Balram)forever teases me.
you never gave birth to me,
and I was bought in the market.
this is what he tells me
o mother mihne, Dau forever teases me.
fed up of his teasing ways,
I don't go out to play.
who is your mother?
and who is your father?
again and again he says.
Yasoda's fair, so also Nanda,
how come you're so dark?
Dau provokes, the gopas laugh,
and all have such a lark.
me, mother, you want to beat,
but Dau you never even scold,
seeing the anger on Mohan's face
Yasoda's joy was untold,

The blue forest, chilled and blue, like the lips of the dead
if the lips were gone. The year has been cut in half
with dull scissors, the solstice still looking for its square
on the calendar. Perhaps the scissors were really
lawn mowers or hoes. Perhaps God's calendar is Chinese.
As first I didn't understand those burlap dolls
slouched in Central Pennsylvania craft stores.
Where were the button eyes, the tiny pearl nostrils?
the smudgy pink watercolor cheeks?

I enter the woods--part Gretel, part Little Red.

XXXI
The villain flies, he, full of rage and ire,
Pursues, she stood and wondered on them both,
But yet to follow them showed no desire,
To stray so far she would perchance be loth,
But quickly turned her, fierce as flaming fire,
And on her foes wreaked her anger wroth,
On every side she kills them down amain,
And now she flies, and now she turns again.

XXXII
As the swift ure by Volga's rolling flood
Chased through the plains the mastiff curs toforn,
Flies to the succor of some neighbor wood,

XVI
Soon was the prey out of their hands recovered,
By step and step the Frenchmen gan retire,
Till on a little hill at last they hovered,
Whose strength preserved them from Clorinda's ire:
When, as a tempest that hath long been covered
In watery clouds breaks out with sparkling fire,
With his strong squadron Lord Tancredi came,
His heart with rage, his eyes with courage flame.

XVII
Mast great the spear was which the gallant bore
That in his warlike pride he made to shake,
As winds tall cedars toss on mountains hoar:

LXXXVI
"But if our sins us of his help deprive,
Of his high justice let no mercy fall;
Yet should our deaths us some contentment give,
To die, where Christ received his burial,
So might we die, not envying them that live;
So would we die, not unrevenged all:
Nor Turks, nor Christians, if we perish such,
Have cause to joy, or to complain too much.

LXXXVII
"Think not that wars we love, and strife affect,
Or that we hate sweet peace, or rest denay,
Think not your sovereign's friendship we reject,

XXXI
Thus spake the nymph, yet spake but to the wind,
She could not alter his well-settled thought;
O miracle! O strife of wondrous kind!
Where love and virtue such contention wrought,
Where death the victor had for meed assigned;
Their own neglect, each other's safety sought;
But thus the king was more provoked to ire,
Their strife for bellows served to anger's fire.

XXXII
He thinks, such thoughts self-guiltiness finds out,
They scorned his power, and therefore scorned the pain,
"Nay, nay," quoth he, "let be your strife and doubt,