Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,



Ye have left your souls on Earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wond'rous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian Lawns
Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large bluebells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless tranced thing,
But divine meoldious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new!
-Keats

John Keats died young, at age 25. He never was recognized for his poetry in his lifetime.

We make our meek adjustments, contented with such random consolations as the wind deposits in slightened and too ample pockets.

For we cans till love the world, who find a famished kitten on the step, and know recesses for it from the fury of the street, or warm torn elbow coverts.

We will sidestep, and to the final smirk, dally the doom of that inevitable thumb, that slowly chafes its puckered index toward us, facing the dull squint with what innocence, and what surpise!

And yet these fine collapses are not lies more than the pirouettes of any pliant cane; Our obsequies are, in a way, no enterprise. We can evade you, and all else but the heart: What blame to us if the heart live on.
-Hart Crane

Hart Crane was an American, also died young.


No comments: