Amalia

Friedrich von Schiller

Angel-fair, Walhalla's charms displaying,

Fairer than all mortal youths was he;
Mild his look, as May-day sunbeams straying
Gently o'er the blue and glassy sea.

And his kisses!--what ecstatic feeling!

Like two flames that lovingly entwine,
Like the harp's soft tones together stealing
Into one sweet harmony divine,--

Soul and soul embraced, commingled, blended,

Lips and cheeks with trembling passion burned,
Heaven and earth, in pristine chaos ended,
Round the blissful lovers madly turn'd.

He is gone--and, ah! with bitter anguish

Vainly now I breathe my mournful sighs;
He is gone--in hopeless grief I languish
Earthly joys I ne'er again can prize!

The Death and Last Confessions of Wandering Peter

Hilaire Belloc

When Peter Wanderwide was young

He wandered everywhere he would:
All that he approved was sung,
And most of what he saw was good.

When Peter Wanderwide was thrown

By Death himself beyond Auxerre,
He chanted in heroic tone
To priests and people gathered there:

"If all that I have loved and seen

Be with me on the Judgment Day,
I shall be saved the crowd between
From Satan and his foul array.

"Almighty God will surely cry,

'St. Michael! Who is this that stands
With Ireland in his dubious eye,
And Perigord between his hands,

"'And on his arm the stirrup-thongs,

And in his gait the narrow seas,
And in his mouth Burgundian songs,
But in his heart the Pyrenees?'

"St. Michael then will answer right

(And not without angelic shame),
'I seem to know his face by sight:
I cannot recollect his name . . . . ?'

"St. Peter will befriend me then,

Because my name is Peter too:
'I know him for the best of men
That ever walloped barley brew.

"'And though I did not know him well

And though his soul were clogged with sin,
I hold the keys of Heaven and Hell.
Be welcome, noble Peterkin.'

"Then shall I spread my native wings

And tread secure the heavenly floor,
And tell the blessed doubtful things
Of Val d'Aran and Perigord."

_________

This was the last and solemn jest

Of weary Peter Wanderwide.
He spoke it with a failing zest,
And having spoken it, he died.

The Survivor
Primo Levi

Gray with cement dust,

Nebulous in the mist,
Once more he sees his companions' faces Livid in the first faint light, Tinged with death in their
uneasy sleep. At night, under the heavy burden Of their dreams, their jaws move,
Chewing a non-existent turnip. 'Stand back, leave me alone, submerged people,
Go away. I haven't dispossessed anyone,
Haven't usurped anyone's bread. No one died in my place. No one. It's not my fault if I live and
breathe,
Go back into your mist.
Eat, drink, sleep and put on clothes.'

I’m Explaining a Few Things

Pablo Neruda

You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?

and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full of apertures and birds?
I'll tell you all the news.

I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.

From there you could look out

over Castille's dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raul?
Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember
from under the ground

my balconies on which
the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?
Brother, my brother! Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.

And one morning all that was burning,

one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise,

stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!

Face to face with you I have seen the blood

of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain :
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.
And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?

Come and see the blood in the streets.

Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!

Call to Account
Vladimir Mayakovsky

The drum of war thunders and thunders.

It calls: thrust iron into the living.
From every country
slave after slave
are thrown onto bayonet steel.
For the sake of what?
The earth shivers
hungry
and stripped.
Mankind is vapourised in a blood bath
only so
someone
somewhere
can get hold of Albania.
Human gangs bound in malice,
blow after blow strikes the world
only for
someone’s vessels
to pass without charge
through the Bosporus.
Soon
the world
won’t have a rib intact.
And its soul will be pulled out.
And trampled down
only for someone,
to lay
their hands on
Mesopotamia.
Why does
a boot
crush the Earth — fissured and rough?
What is above the battles’ sky -
Freedom?
God?
Money!
When will you stand to your full height,
you,
giving them your life?
When will you hurl a question to their faces:
Why are we fighting?

Elevation
Charles Baudelaire
Above the ponds, beyond the valleys,
The woods, the mountains, the clouds, the seas,
Farther than the sun, the distant breeze,
The spheres that wilt to infinity

My spirit, you move with agility

And, like a good swimmer who swoons in the wave
You groove the depths immensity gave,
The inexpressible and male ecstasy.

From this miasma of waste,

You will be purified in superior air
And drink a pure and divine liqueur,
A clear fire to replace the limpid space

Behind this boredom and fatigue, this vast chagrin

Whose weight moves the mists of existence,
Happy is he who vigorously fans the senses
Toward serene and luminous fields—wincing!

The one whose thoughts are like skylarks taken wing

Across the heavens mornings in full flight
—Who hovers over life, understanding without effort
The language of flowers and mute things.

The Upas Tree

Aleksander Pushkin

Deep in the desert's misery,

far in the fury of the sand,
there stands the awesome Upas Tree
lone watchman of a lifeless land.

The wilderness, a world of thirst,

in wrath engendered it and filled
its every root, every accursed
grey leafstalk with a sap that killed.

Dissolving in the midday sun

the poison oozes through its bark,
and freezing when the day is done
gleams thick and gem-like in the dark.

No bird flies near, no tiger creeps;

alone the whirlwind, wild and black,
assails the tree of death and sweeps
away with death upon its back.

And though some roving cloud may stain

with glancing drops those leaden leaves,
the dripping of a poisoned rain
is all the burning sand receives.

But man sent man with one proud look

towards the tree, and he was gone,
the humble one, and there he took
the poison and returned at dawn.

He brought the deadly gum; with it

he brought some leaves, a withered bough,
while rivulets of icy sweat
ran slowly down his livid brow.

He came, he fell upon a mat,

and reaping a poor slave's reward,
died near the painted hut where sat
his now unconquerable lord.

The king, he soaked his arrows true

in poison, and beyond the plains
dispatched those messengers and slew
his neighbors in their own domains.