She Walks in Beauty
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.
Lord Byron
(1788 – 1824)
She Walks in Beauty
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More in: Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Byron, Lord
Nacht
Zinnoberroter Traum emporreißt unterdrückte Lust,
Die wandgeketteten verdammten Pritschen stöhnen,
O, nun auftauchen Bilder, die den kahlen Raum verschönen,
Der Dämon wühlt in unsrer Brust.
Erwachend höhnen, Kupplerinnen, uns die Eisengitter,
Im Morgengrauen sind die Zellen wie verweinte Mütter.
Ernst Toller
(1893 – 1939)
Nacht
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More in: Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Toller, Ernst
Our Minds Are Married,
But We are Too Young
Our minds are married, but we are too young
For wedlock by the customs of this age
When parent homes pen each in separate cage
And only supper-earning songs are sung.
Times past, when medieval woods were green,
Babes were betrothed, and that betrothal brief.
Remember Romeo in love and grief—
Those star-crossed lovers—Juliet was fourteen.
Times past, the caveman by his new-found fire
Rested beside his mate in woodsmoke’s scent.
By our own fireside we shall rest content
Fifty years hence keep troth with hearts desire.
We shall remember, when our hair is white,
These clouded days revealed in radiant light.
George Orwell
(1903 – 1950)
Our Minds Are Married, But We are Too Young
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More in: Archive O-P, Archive O-P, George Orwell, Orwell, George, Romeo & Juliet
Among the Multitude
Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child,
any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled, but that one is not–that one knows me.
Ah lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.
Walt Whitman
(1819 – 1892)
Poem: Among the Multitude
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive W-X, Archive W-X, Whitman, Walt
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