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The Dead Soldier
(In memory of Thomas Ashe)
Where the sword has opened the way the man will follow
“Look! they came, the triumphant army!
Over yon hill see their weapons peeping!”
Still I spoke not but my wheel sent turning,
I closed my eyes for my heart was weeping,
My heart was weeping for a dead soldier.
Who is he who looks towards me ?
“’Tis no man but a gay flag flying,”
Red was his mouth and his white brow thoughtful,
Blue his eyes — how my soul is crying,
My soul is crying for a dead soldier.
“Kneel ye down, lest your eyes should dare them,
Kneel ye down and your beads be saying.”
“Lord, on their heads Thy wrath deliver,”
This is the prayer that my lips are praying,
My heart is praying for a dead soldier.
“Best cheer the path of the men victorious,
For he is dead and his blade lies broken,
His march is far where no aid can follow,
And for his people he left no token,
He left no token, the dead soldier.”
The way of the sword a man can follow,
See the young child with his gold hair gleaming.
When falls the oak must the acorn perish?
He lifts the blade and his eyes are dreaming,
He dreams the dream of the dead soldier.
THE END
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
The Dead Soldier
(In memory of Thomas Ashe)
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Lied der Einsamkeit
Sie wölbt um meine Seele Kathedralen,
Sie schäumt um mich ein brandend Meer,
Der Gosse sperrt sie sich wie eine Wehr,
Und wie ein Wall beschützt sie meine Qualen.
In ihr fühl ich die Süße abendlicher Stille,
Auf leeren Stunden blüht sie sanftes Feld,
Ihr Schoß gebiert das Wunder der geahnten Welt,
Ein stählern Schwert steilt sich metallner Wille.
Ernst Toller
(1893 – 1939)
Lied der Einsamkeit
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The Prisoner
All day I lie beneath the great pine tree,
Whose perfumed branches wave and shadow me.
I hear the groaning of its straining heart
As in the breeze its thin leaves meet and part
Like frantic fingers loosened and entwined;
I hear it whisper to the sighing wind,
“What of the mountain peaks, where I was born?”
As sharp tears drop I feel its falling thorn.
I see in the far clouds the wild geese fly,
Homeward once more, free, in the storm-swept sky.
Back to the land they loved, all, all, have gone,
How swift the flight by joy and hope led on.
“What of the mountain land where I was born?”
I cry, they pass, glad in the dawning morn,
Home to the moon-pale lake, the heath-clad hill,
And give no thought for one imprisoned still
All day I lie beneath the sad pine tree,
Whose groaning branches wave and shadow me,
Chained to the earth, the dark clay of the grave,
In helpless fashion feel its wild heart rave.
“Free, set free,” I hear its moaning breath,
Where liberty means naught, alas, but death
Ah, freedom is but death.
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
The Prisoner
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From New York Times bestselling author, r.h. Sin, comes a care package of two new poetry and prose collections boxed together in an elegant slipcase.
R.H. Sin is a New York Times bestselling author of poetry books.
He lives in New York with his wife, poet Samantha King Holmes, and two kids.
I Hope She Finds This
by r.h. Sin (Author)
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Dec 13 2022
Language: English
Paperback: 360 pages
ISBN-10: 1524871133
ISBN-13: 978-1524871130
$29.49
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Ein Gefangener reicht dem Tod die Hand
Erst hörte man den Schrei der armen Kreatur.
Dann poltern Flüche durch die aufgescheuchten Gänge,
Sirenen singen die Alarmgesänge,
In allen Zellen tickt die Totenuhr.
Was trieb dich, Freund, dem Tod die Hand zu reichen?
Das Wimmern der Gepeitschten? Die geschluchzten Hungerklagen?
Die Jahre, die wie Leichenratten unsern Leib zernagen?
Die ruhelosen Schritte, die zu unsern Häuptern schleichen?
Trieb dich der stumme Hohn der leidverfilzten Wände,
Der wie ein Nachtmahr unsre Brust bedrückt?
Wir wissen’s nicht. Wir wissen nur, daß Menschenhände
Einander wehe tun. Daß keine Hilfebrücke überbrückt
Die Ströme Ich und Du. Daß wir den Weg verlieren
Im Dunkel dieses Hauses. Daß wir frieren.
Ernst Toller
(1893 – 1939)
Ein Gefangener reicht dem Tod die Hand
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Sick I am and sorrowful
Sick I am and sorrowful, how can I be well again
Here, where fog and darkness are, and big guns boom all day,
Practising for evil sport? If you speak humanity,
Hatred comes into each face, and so you cease to pray.
How I dread the sound of guns, hate the bark of musketry,
Since the friends I loved are dead, all stricken by the sword.
Full of anger is my heart, full of rage and misery;
How can I grow well again, or be my peace restored?
If I were in Glenmalure, or in Enniskerry now,
Hearing of the coming spring in the pinetree’s song;
If I woke on Arran Strand, dreamt me on the cliffs of Moher,
Could I not grow gay again, should I not be strong?
If I stood with eager heart on the heights of Carrantuohill,
Beaten by the four great winds into hope and joy again,
Far above the cannons’ roar or the scream of musketry,
If I heard the four great seas, what were weariness or pain?
Were I in a little town, Ballybunion, Ballybrack,
Laughing with the children there, I would sing and dance once more,
Heard again the storm clouds roll hanging over Lugnaquilla,
Built dream castles from the sands of Killiney’s golden shore.
If I saw the wild geese fly over the dark lakes of Kerry
Or could hear the secret winds, I could kneel and pray.
But ’tis sick I am and grieving, how can I be well again
Here, where fear and sorrow are—my heart so far away?
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
Sick I am and sorrowful
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O! there are spirits of the air
O! there are spirits of the air
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees:—
Such lovely ministers to meet
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.
With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And moonlight seas, that are the voice
Of these inexplicable things
Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice
When they did answer thee; but they
Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.
And thou hast sought in starry eyes
Beams that were never meant for thine
Another’s wealth:—tame sacrifice
To a fond faith I still dost thou pine!
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands!
Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
On the false earth’s inconstancy!
Did thine own, mind afford no scope
Of love, or moving thoughts to thee!
That natural scenes or human smiles
Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles.
Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled
Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;
The glory of the moon is dead;
Night’s ghosts and dreams have now departed;
Thine own soul still is true to thee,
But changed to a foul fiend through misery.
This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
Beside thee like thy shadow hangs,
Dream not to chase;—the mad endeavour
Would scourge thee to severer pangs.
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,
Dark as it is, all change would aggravate.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1792 – 1822)
O! there are spirits of the air
1886
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A deeply moving and brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book of days by the National Book Awardwinning author of Just Kids and M Train, featuring more than 365 images and reflections that chart Smiths singular aestheticinspired by her wildly popular Instagram.
In 2018, without any plan or agenda for what might happen next, Patti Smith posted her first Instagram photo: her hand with the simple message Hello Everybody! Known for shooting with her beloved Land Camera 250, Smith started posting images from her phone including portraits of her kids, her radiator, her boots, and her Abyssinian cat, Cairo.
Followers felt an immediate affinity with these miniature windows into Smiths world, photographs of her daily coffee, the books shes reading, the graves of beloved heroes William Blake, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Simone Weil, Albert Camus. Over time, a coherent story of a life devoted to art took shape, and more than a million followers responded to Smiths unique aesthetic in images that chart her passions, devotions, obsessions, and whims.
Original to this book are vintage photographs: anniversary pearls, a mothers keychain, and a husbands Mosrite guitar. Here, too, are photos from Smiths archives of life on and off the road, train stations, obscure cafés, a notebook always nearby. In wide-ranging yet intimate daily notations, Smith shares dispatches from her travels around the world.
With over 365 photographs taking you through a single year, A Book of Days is a new way to experience the expansive mind of the visionary poet, writer, and performer. Hopeful, elegiac, playfuland complete with an introduction by Smith that explores her documentary processA Book of Days is a timeless offering for deeply uncertain times, an inspirational map of an artists life.
Patti Smith is a writer, performer, and visual artist. She gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary merging of poetry and rock. She has released twelve albums, including Horses, which has been hailed as one of the top one hundred debut albums of all time by Rolling Stone.
Smith had her first exhibit of drawings at the Gotham Book Mart in 1973 and has been represented by the Robert Miller Gallery since 1978. Her books include Just Kids, winner of the National Book Award in 2010, Wītt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, and Auguries of Innocence.
A Book of Days Hardcover
by Patti Smith
Language: English
Publication date: 11/15/2022
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
ISBN-10: 0593448545
ISBN-13: 978-0593448540
Pages: 400
Hardcover
$22.99
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Schwangeres Mädchen
Du schreitest wunderbar in mittaglicher Stunde,
Um Deine Brüste rauscht der reife Wind,
Ein Lichtbach über Deinen Nacken rinnt,
Der Sommer blüht auf Deinem Munde.
Du bist ein Wunderkelch der gnadenreichen
Empfängnis liebestrunkner Nacht,
Du bist von Lerchenliedern überdacht,
Und Deine Last ist köstlich ohnegleichen.
Ernst Toller
(1893 – 1939)
Schwangeres Mädchen
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Loud Shout
The Flaming Tongues of war
Ta’n Sionac Ar Sraidib Ag Faire Go Caocrac
Air—“The West’s Asleep.”
Loud shout the flaming tongues of war.
The cannon’s thunder rolls afar
While Empires tremble for their fall.
Thou art alone amongst them all.
Where is the friend who for thy sake
Will on his sword thy freedom take?
The son who holds thy right alone
Above an Empire or a throne?
Ah, Grannia Wael, thy stricken head
Is bowed in sorrow o’er thy dead,
Thy dead who died for love of thee,
Not for some foreign liberty.
Shall we betray when hope is near,
Our Motherland whom we hold dear,
To go to fight on foreign strand,
For foreign rights and foreign land?
The Lion’s fangs have sought to kill
A Nation’s soul, a Nation’s will;
From tooth and claw thy wounded breast
Has held them safe, has held them blest.
About thy head great eagles are,
They fly with scream and storm of war,
Their shadows fall, we do not know
If they be friend,—if they be foe.
For Lion’s roar we have no fears,
We fought him down the restless years.
We watch the Eagles in the sky,
Lest they should land—or pass us by.
But, yet beware! the Lion goes
To strike our friends—to charm our foes.
By hamlet small, by hill and dale
The creeping foe is on our trail;
His face is kind, his voice is bland,
He prates of faith and fatherland;
Shall we go forth to die and die
For Belgium’s tear, and Serbia’s sigh?
Oh, Volunteers, through field and town
He seeks his prey, he tracks thee down
His voice is soft, his words are fair,
It is the creeping foe, Beware!
Ah, Grannia Wael, in blood and tears
We fought thy battles through the years,
That thou shouldst live we’re glad to die
In prison cell or gallows high.
Oh, cursed be he ! who to our shame
Drives forth thy manhood in thy name,
O, WHILE THE LION LAPS YOUR BLOOD
SHALL WE UNITE IN SERVITUDE.
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
Loud Shout The Flaming Tongues of war
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The Cloud
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night ’tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven’s blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardours of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aëry nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbèd maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till calm the rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the Sun’s throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon’s with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-coloured bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1792 – 1822)
The Cloud
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Sixteen Dead Men
Hark! in the still night. Who goes there?
“Fifteen dead men” Why do they wait?
“Hasten, comrade, death is so fair.”
Now comes their Captain through the dim gate.
Sixteen dead men! What on their sword?
“A nation’s honour proud do they bear.”
What on their bent heads? “God’s holy word;
All of their nation’s heart blended in prayer.”
Sixteen dead men! What makes their shroud?
“All of their nation’s love wraps them around.”
Where do their bodies lie, brave and so proud?
“Under the gallows-tree in prison ground.”
Sixteen dead men! Where do they go?
“To join their regiment, where Sarsfield leads;
Wolfe Tone and Emmet, too, well do they know.
There shall they bivouac, telling great deeds.”
Sixteen dead men! Shall they return?
“Yea, they shall come again, breath of our breath.
They on our nation’s hearth made old fires burn.
Guard her unconquered soul, strong in their death.”
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
Sixteen Dead Men
From The Tricolour: Poems of the Irish Revolution (1922)
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