TÉCNICAS DEL COMENTARIO DE TEXTOS EN INGLÉS
101
Código: 810017
Curso. 2º
Carácter: troncal
Cuatrimestre: primer cuatrimestre (4’5 créditos)
Curso académico: 2008-09
Profesores y grupos:
Brian Crews (grupo 1)
Mercedes Salvador Bello(grupos 2 y 4)
Manuel J. Gómez Lara (grupo 3)
A. Dürer. Melancholia. 1513.
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Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
POEMS
Sir Thomas Wyatt (ca. 1535)
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, alas, I may no more;
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow; I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written her fair neck round about,
"Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame."
Sir Philip Sidney
Arcadia (1591):
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange, one for the other giv'n.
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a better bargain driv'n.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
I cherish his, because in me it bides.
His heart his wound received from my sight:
My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;
For as from me, on him his hurt did light,
So still me thought in me his hurt did smart:
Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss:
My true love hath my heart and I have his.
Sir Philip Sydney
Astrophel and Stella (1591): Sonnet 63
O grammar-rules, O now your virtues show;
So children still read you with awful eyes,
As my young dove may, in your precepts wise,
Her grant to me by her own virtue know;
For late, with heart most high, with eyes most low,
I craved the thing which ever she denies;
She, lightning Love displaying Venus' skies,
Lest once should not be heard, twice said, No, No!
Sing then, my muse, now Io Pæan sing;
Heav'ns envy not at my high triumphing,
But grammar's force with sweet success confirm;
For grammar says,—oh this, dear Stella, weigh,—
For grammar says,—to grammar who says nay?—
That in one speech two negatives affirm!
Sir Philip Sydney
Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare,
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scattered thought;
Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care;
Thou web of will, whose end is never wrought:
Desire, Desire! I have too dearly bought,
With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware;
Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought,
Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare,
But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought,
In vain thou mad'st me to vain things aspire,
In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire,
For Virtue hath this better lesson taught:
Within myself to seek my only hire,
Desiring nought but how to kill Desire.
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W. Shakespeare
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
[Find a Hypertext version of this sonnet in
Sonnet 55
Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
<http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/sonnet116/text.htm>
Sonnet 129
Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof,--and prov'd, a very woe;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream:
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
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Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Edmund Spencer (Amoretti, 1595)
Sonnet 15
Ye tradeful merchants that with weary toil,
do seek most pretious things to make your gain:
and both the Indias of their treasures spoil,
what needeth you to seeke so far in vain?
For lo, my love doth in her self contain
all this world’s riches that may far be found;
if saphires, lo her eyes be saphires plain,
if rubies, lo her lips be rubies found;
If pearls, her teeth be pearls both pure and round;
if ivory, her forehead ivory weene;
if gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;
if silver, her fair hands are silver sheene,
But that which fairest is, but few behold,
her mind adorn’d with vertues manifold.
Samuel Daniel (From Celia 1592)
When winter snows upon thy sable hairs,
And frost of age hath nipped thy beauties near,
When dark shall seem thy day that never clears,
And all lies withered that was held so dear,
Then take this picture which I here present thee,
Limned with a pencil not all unworthy;
Here see the gifts that God and nature lent thee,
Here read thyself and what I suffered for thee.
This may remain thy lasting monument,
Which happily posterity may cherish;
These colors with thy fading are not spent,
These may remain when thou and I shall perish.
If they remain, then thou shalt live thereby;
They will remain, and so thou canst not die.
Sonnet 54
Of this world’s Theatre in which we stay,
My love like the Spectator idly sits
beholding me that all the pageants play,
disguising diversly my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
and mask in mirth like to a Comedy:
soon after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I waile and make my woes a Tragedy.
Yet she beholding me with constant eye,
delights not in my mirth no[r] rues my smart:
but when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry
she laughes, and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move her? if nor mirth, nor moan,
she is no woman, but a senselesse stone.
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Richard Barnfield
Cynthia, with Certaine Sonnets, 1595.
Sighing, and sadly sitting by my love,
He asked the cause of my heart's sorrowing,
Conjuring me by heaven's eternal King
To tell the cause which me so much did move.
Compelled (quoth I), to thee will I confess,
Love is the cause, and only love it is
That doth deprive me of my heavenly bliss.
Love is the pain that doth my heart oppress.
And what is she (quoth he) whom thou dost love?
Look in this glass (quoth I), there shalt thou see
The perfect form of my felicity.
When, thinking that it would strange magic prove,
He opened it, and taking off the cover,
He straight perceived himself to be my lover.
Michael Drayton
Idea, 1619.
V
Nothing but "No," and "Aye," and "Aye," and "No"?
How falls it out so strangely you reply?
I tell ye, Fair, I'll not be answer'd so,
With this affirming "No," denying "Aye."
I say, "I love," you slightly answer "Aye";
I say, "You love," you pule me out a "No";
I say, "I die," you echo me an "Aye";
"Save me," I cry, you sigh me out a "No";
Must woe and I have nought but "No" and "Aye"?
No I am I, if I no more can have;
Answer no more, with silence make reply,
And let me take myself what I do crave.
Let "No" and "Aye" with I and you be so;
Then answer "No," and "Aye," and "Aye" and "No."
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
XX
An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still,
Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest,
Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill,
Nor gives me once but one poor minute's rest;
In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake,
And when by means to drive it out I try,
With greater torments then it me doth take,
And tortures me in most extremity;
Before my face it lays down my despairs,
And hastes me on unto a sudden death,
Now tempting me to drown myself in tears,
And then in sighing to give up my breath.
Thus am I still provok'd to every evil
By this good wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.
LXIV
THINE eyes taught me the alphabet of Love,
To con my cross-row ere I learned to spell
(For I was apt, a scholar like to prove),
Gave me sweet looks when-as I learned well.
Vows were my vowels, when I then begun
At my first lesson in thy sacred name ;
My consonants, the next when I had done,
Words consonant and sounding to thy fame ;
My liquids then were liquid crystal tears,
My cares my mutes, so mute to crave relief ;
My doleful diphthongs were my life's despairs,
Redoubling sighs, the accents of my grief.
My love's school-mistress now hath taught me so,
That I can read a story of my woe.
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Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
When thou must home to shades of underground,
And there arriv'd, a new admired guest,
The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finish'd love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;
Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,
Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,
And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake:
When thou hast told these honours done to thee,
Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me.
John Donne.
Elegy 20: To His Mistress Going To Bed.
Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy ;
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing, though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now it is bed-time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.
Off with your wiry coronet, and show
The hairy diadems which on you do grow.
Off with your hose and shoes ; then softly tread
In this love's hallow'd temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
Revealed to men ; thou, angel, bring'st with thee
A heaven-like Mahomet's paradise ; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
By this these angels from an evil sprite ;
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my Newfoundland,
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
My mine of precious stones, my empery ;
How am I blest in thus discovering thee !
To enter in these bonds, is to be free ;
Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.
Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee;
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are like Atlanta's ball cast in men's views;
That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,
His earthly soul might court that, not them.
Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made
For laymen, are all women thus array'd.
Themselves are only mystic books, which we
—Whom their imputed grace will dignify—
Must see reveal'd. Then, since that I may know,
As liberally as to thy midwife show
Thyself; cast all, yea, this white linen hence;
There is no penance due to innocence:
To teach thee, I am naked first; why then,
What needst thou have more covering than a man?
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Mary Wroth
(From Pamphilia to Amphilantus, 1621)
Sonnet 14
Am I thus conquer'd? have I lost the powers,
That to withstand which joyes to ruine me?
Must I bee still, while it my strength devoures,
And captive leads me prisoner bound, unfree?
Love first shall leane mens fant'sies to them free,
Desire shall quench loves flames, Spring, hate sweet showers,
Love shall loose all his Darts, have sight, and see
His shame and wishings, hinder happy houres.
Why should we not Loves purblinde charmes resist?
Must we be servile, doing what he list?
No, seeke some host to harbour thee: I flye
Thy Babish tricks, and freedome doe professe;
But O, my hurt makes my lost heart confesse:
I love, and must; so farewell liberty.
Sonnet 22
Like to the Indians scorched with the Sunne,
The Sunne which they doe as their God adore:
So am I us'd by Love, for evermore
I worship him, lesse favours have I wonne.
Better are they who thus to blacknesse run,
And so can onely whitenesse want deplore:
Then I who pale and white am with griefes store,
Nor can have hope, but to see hopes undone.
Besides their sacrifice receiv'd in sight,
Of their chose Saint, mine hid as worthlesse rite,
Grant me to see where I my offerings give.
Then let me weare the marke of Cupids might,
In heart, as they in skin of Phoebus light,
Not ceasing offerings to Love while I live.
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
Sir John Suckling (1609-42)
I prithee send me back my heart,
Since I cannot have thine;
For if from yours you will not part,
Why then shouldst thou have mine?
Yet now I think on't, let it lie, To find it were in vain;
For thou'st a thief in either eye
Would steal it back again.
Why should two hearts in one breast lie,
And yet not lodge together?
O love, where is thy sympathy,
If thus our breasts thou sever?
But love is such a mystery,
I cannot find it out;
For when I think I'm best resolved,
I then am most in doubt.
Then farewell care, and farewell woe, I will no longer pine;
For I'll believe I have her heart
As much as she hath mine.
William Strode. 1602–1645
Chloris in the Snow
I saw fair Chloris walk alone,
When feather'd rain came softly down,
As Jove descending from his tower
To court her in a silver shower:
The wanton snow flew to her breast,
Like pretty birds into their nest,
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But, overcome with whiteness there,
For grief it thaw'd into a tear:
Thence falling on her garments' hem,
To deck her, froze into a gem.
A Riddle: On A Kiss
What thing is that, nor felt nor seene
Till it bee given? a present for a Queene:
A fine conceite to give and take the like:
The giver yet is farther for to seeke;
The taker doth possesse nothing the more,
The giver hee hath nothing lesse in store:
And given once that nature hath it still,
You cannot keepe or leave it if you will:
The workmanshippe is counted very small,
The labour is esteemed naught at all:
But to conclude, this gift is such indeede,
That, if some see't 'twill make theyr hearts to bleede
Keepe On Your Maske (Version for his Mistress)
Keepe on your maske and hide your eye
For in beholding you I die.
Your fatall beauty, Gorgon-like
Dead with astonishment doth strike.
Your piercing eyes that now I see
Are worse than basilisks to me.
Shut from mine eyes those hills of snowe,
Their melting vally do not showe:
Those azure paths lead to despaire,
O vex me not, forbeare, forbeare;
For while I thus in torments dwell
The sight of Heaven is worse than Hell.
In those faire cheeks two pits doe lye
To bury those slaine by your eye:
So this at length doth comfort me
That fairely buried I shall be:
My grave with Roses, Lillies, spread,
Methinks tis life for to be dead:
Come then and kill me with your eye,
For if you let me live I dye.
When I perceive your lips againe
Recover those your eyes have slaine,
With kisses that (like balsome pure)
Deep wounds as soone as made doe cure,
Methinks tis sicknesse to be sound,
And there's no health to such a wound.
When in your bosome I behold
Two hills of snow yet never cold,
Which lovers, whom your beauty kills,
Revive by climing those your hills,
Methinks there's life in such a death
That gives a hope of sweeter breath:
Then since one death prevails not where
So many antidotes are nere,
And your bright eyes doe but in vaine
Kill those who live as fast as slaine;
That I no more such death survive
Your way's to bury me alive
In place unknown, and so that I
Being dead may live and living dye.
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George Herbert (1593-1633):
The Altar
A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,
Made of a heart and cemented with tears;
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workman's tool hath touch'd the same.
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow'r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame
To praise thy name.
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.
Edmund Waller
To Phillis (From Poems, 1664)
Phillis, why should we delay
Pleasures shorter than the day?
Can we (which we never can)
Stretch our lives beyond their span;
Beauty like a shadow flies,
And our youth before us dies;
Or would youth and beauty stay,
Love hath wings, and will away.
Love hath swifter wings than Time;
Change in love to Heaven does clime.
Gods that never change their state,
Vary oft their love and hate.
Phillis, to this truth we owe
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
All the love betwixt us two:
Let not you and I require
What has been our past desire;
On what Shepherds you have smil'd,
Or what Nymphs I have beguil'd;
Leave it to the Planets too,
What we shall hereafter do;
For the joys we now may prove,
Take advice of present love.
Robert Herrick
To the Virgins, to make much of Time
GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
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Sir George Etherege (ca. 1635-1691)
To a Lady, Asking him how Long
he would Love her
It is not, Celia, in our power
To say how long our love will last;
It may be we within this hour
May lose those joys we now do taste:
The blessed, that immortal be,
From change in love are only free.
Then, since we mortal lovers are,
Ask not how long our love will last;
But while it does, let us take care
Each minute be with pleasure past.
Were it not madness to deny
To live, because w'are sure to die?
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Satire on Charles II
In th' isle of Britain, long since famous grown
For breeding the best cunts in Christendom,
There reigns, and oh! long may he reign and thrive,
The easiest King and best-bred man alive.
Him no ambition moves to get renown
Like the French fool, that wanders up and down
Starving his people, hazarding his crown.
Peace is his aim, his gentleness is such,
And love he loves, for he loves fucking much.
Nor are his high desires above his strength:
His scepter and his prick are of a length;
And she may sway the one who plays with th' other,
And make him little wiser than his brother.
Poor Prince! thy prick, like thy buffoons at Court,
Will govern thee because it makes thee sport.
'Tis sure the sauciest prick that e'er did swive,
The proudest, peremptoriest prick alive.
Though safety, law, religion, life lay on 't,
'Twould break through all to make its way to cunt.
Restless he rolls about from whore to whore,
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.
To Carwell, the most dear of all his dears,
The best relief of his declining years,
Oft he bewails his fortune, and her fate:
To love so well, and be beloved so late.
For though in her he settles well his tarse,
Yet his dull, graceless bollocks hang an arse.
This you'd believe, had I but time to tell ye
The pains it costs to poor, laborious Nelly,
Whilst she employs hands, fingers, mouth, and thighs,
Ere she can raise the member she enjoys.
All monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on,
From the hector of France to the cully of Britain.
(Find an annotated version of this poem in
<http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/charles2.html>
Song
Love a woman? You're an ass.
'Tis a most insipid passion
To choose out for your happiness
The idlest part of God's creation.
Let the porter and the groom,
Things designed for dirty slaves,
Drudge in fair Aurelia's womb
To get supplies for age and graves.
Farewell, woman! I intend
Henceforth every night to sit
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Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
With my lewd, well-natured friend,
Drinking to engender wit.
The untam'd heart to hand I brought,
And fixed the wild and wandering thought.
Then give me health, wealth, mirth, and wine,
And if busy Love intrenches,
There's a sweet, soft page of mine
Does the trick worth forty wenches.
I never vow'd nor sigh'd in vain,
But both, tho' false, were well received.
The fair are pleased to give us pain,
And what they wish is soon believed.
And tho' I talk'd of wounds and smart,
Love's pleasures only touched my heart.
John Dryden
(Song from Marriage a-la-Mode, 1672)
Why should a foolish marriage vow,
Which long ago was made,
Oblige us to each other now
When passion is decay'd?
We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could,
Till our love was lov'd out in us both:
But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:
'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.
If I have pleasures for a friend,
And farther love in store,
What wrong has he whose joys did end,
And who could give no more?
'Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me,
Or that I should bar him of another:
For all we can gain is to give our selves pain,
When neither can hinder the other.
Aphra Behn
(From, Lycidus, 1688)
A thousand martyrs I have made,
All sacrificed to my desire;
A thousand beauties have betray'd,
That languish in resistless fire.
Alone the glory and the spoil
I always laughing bore away;
The triumphs, without pain or toil,
Without the hell, the heav'n of joy.
And while I thus at random rove
Despise the fools that whine for love.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The Lady’s resolve
(Written on a window, soon after her marriage, 1713)
Whilst thirst of praise and vain desire of fame,
In every age is every woman's aim;
With courtship pleas'd, of silly toasters proud,
Fond of a train, and happy in a crowd;
On each proud fop bestowing some kind glance,
Each conquest owing to some loose advance;
While vain coquets affect to be pursued,
And think they're virtuous, if not grossly lewd:
Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide;
In part she is to blame that has been try'd-He comes too near, that comes to be deny'd.
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William Blake
The Chimney Sweeper (1794)
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep.
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curl'd like a lambs back, was shav'd, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.
And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight,
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe Ned & Jack
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open'd the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm,
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
William Wordsworth
A Complaint
There is a change--and I am poor;
Your love hath been, nor long ago,
A fountain at my fond heart's door.
Whose only business was to flow;
And flow it did; not taking heed
Of its own bounty, or my need.
What happy moments did I count;
Blest was I then all bliss above!
Now, for that consecrated fount
Of murmuring, sparkling, living love,
What have I? Shall I dare to tell?
A comfortless and hidden well.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
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I gazed -and gazed -but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
John Keats
La Belle Dame sans Merci
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
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She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes-So kiss'd to sleep.
And there we slumber'd on the moss,
And there I dream'd, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"
I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld
The rights of woman (1825)
Yes , injured Woman! rise, assert thy right!
Woman! too long degraded, scorned, opprest;
O born to rule in partial Law's despite,
Resume thy native empire o'er the breast!
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Go forth arrayed in panoply divine;
That angel pureness which admits no stain;
Go, bid proud Man his boasted rule resign,
And kiss the golden sceptre of thy reign.
Go, gird thyself with grace; collect thy store
Of bright artillery glancing from afar;
Soft melting tones thy thundering cannon's roar,
Blushes and fears thy magazine of war.
Thy rights are empire: urge no meaner claim,--Felt, not defined, and if debated, lost;
Like sacred mysteries, which withheld from fame,
Shunning discussion, are revered the most.
Try all that wit and art suggest to bend
Of thy imperial foe the stubborn knee;
Make treacherous Man thy subject, not thy friend;
Thou mayst command, but never canst be free.
Awe the licentious, and restrain the rude;
Soften the sullen, clear the cloudy brow:
Be, more than princes' gifts, thy favours sued;--She hazards all, who will the least allow.
But hope not, courted idol of mankind,
On this proud eminence secure to stay;
Subduing and subdued, thou soon shalt find
Thy coldness soften, and thy pride give way.
Then, then, abandon each ambitious thought,
Conquest or rule thy heart shall feebly move,
In Nature's school, by her soft maxims taught,
That separate rights are lost in mutual love.
Charlotte Brontë
The Haunted House (1845)
Oh ! who has broke the stilly hush
Which hung around the spirits' tower?
What strange wild tones and voices rush
Through the lone silence of their bower!
Who bade the builder's hammer ring
Through chambers dedicate to gloom?
Who dared his household gods to bring
Where wander dwellers of the tomb?
O thou who lists the spirits' song!
O thou who broke the spirits' rest!
Long shall their terrors deep and strong
Wake torture in thy guilty breast.
I bid thee by the spectral light
Of the wan moon that sails the sky,
And by the sunshine glad and bright
When dim night's loving spectres fly;
I bid thee quit these haunted halls
Ere morn emits one golden ray.
Haste! leave to us our ruined walls,
And speed thee on a brighter way.
Horace Smith
Ozymandias
In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desart knows: -"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
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"The wonders of my hand." -- The City's gone, -Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder, -- and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Oscar Wilde
Impression du Matin
The Thames nocturne of blue and gold
Changed to a harmony in grey;
A barge with ochre-coloured hay
Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold
The yellow fog came creeping down
The bridges, till the houses' walls
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Seemed changed to shadows, and St. Paul's
Loomed like a bubble o'er the town.
Then suddenly arose the clang
Of waking life; the streets were stirred
With country wagons; and a bird
Flew to the glistening roofs and sang.
But one pale woman all alone,
The daylight kissing her wan hair,
Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare,
With lips of flame and heart of stone.
Desespoir
The seasons send their ruin as they go,
For in the spring the narciss shows its head
Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red,
And in the autumn purple violets blow,
And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow;
Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again
And this grey land grow green with summer rain
And send up cowslips for some boy to mow.
But what of life whose bitter hungry sea
Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night
Covers the days which never more return?
Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn
We lose too soon, and only find delight
In withered husks of some dead memory.
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The Harlot's House
We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.
Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The `Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss.
Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.
We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.
Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille.
They took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.
Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.
Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.
Then, turning to my love, I said,
`The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust.'
But she -she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.
Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.
And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.
Theodore Wratislaw
Sentimentalism (Caprices, 1893)
I love---and you, if you remember well--These long autumnal twilights faintly shed
That slowly die while slow the vesper bell
Shakes solemn notes across the river's bed.
Do you as I in chill forsaken hours
Find blown from gardens of your memory
Strange faded fragrance of ungathered flowers,
And with their scents remember wistfully
Soft steps that passed between the resting herds,
Along dim meads beneath the silent sky,
Light touch of hands or lips, light whispered words
That I shall not forget until I die?
Sonnet Macabre (Orchids, 1896)
I love you for the grief that lurks within
Your languid spirit, and because you wear
Corruption with a vague and childish air,
And with your beauty know the depths of sin;
Because shame cuts and holds you like a gin,
And virtue dies in you slain by despair,
Since evil has you tangled in its snare
And triumphs on the soul good cannot win.
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I love you since you know remorse and tears,
And in your troubled loveliness appears
The spot of ancient crimes that writhe and hiss:
I love you for your hands that calm and bless,
The perfume of your sad and slow caress,
The avid poison of your subtle kiss.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
It's all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile – the winds –
To a heart in port –
Done with the compass –
Done with the chart!
Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor – Tonight –
In thee!
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
As imperceptibly as grief
The summer lapsed away,-Too imperceptible, at last,
To seem like perfidy.
A quietness distilled,
As twilight long begun,
Or Nature, spending with herself
Sequestered afternoon.
The dusk drew earlier in,
The morning foreign shone,-A courteous, yet harrowing grace,
As guest who would be gone.
And thus, without a wing,
Or service of a keel,
Our summer made her light escape
Into the beautiful.
Emily Dickinson
There's been a death in the opposite house
As lately as today.
I know it by the numb look
Such houses have alway.
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The neighbours rustle in and out,
The doctor drives away.
A window opens like a pod,
Abrupt, mechanically;
Somebody flings a mattress out, The children hurry by;
They wonder if It died on that, I used to when a boy.
The minister goes stiffly in
As if the house were his,
And he owned all the mourners now,
And little boys besides;
And then the milliner, and the man
Of the appalling trade,
To take the measure of the house.
There'll be that dark parade
Of tassels and of coaches soon;
It's easy as a sign, The intuition of the news
In just a country town.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Sonnets from the Portuguese
Sonnet 28
My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee tonight.
This said—he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand. . . a simple thing,
Yes I wept for it—this . . . the paper's light. . .
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this . . . 0 Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
Sonnet 43
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Thomas Hardy
The Self-Unseeing
Here is the ancient floor,
Footworn and hollowed and thin.
Here was the former door
Where the dead feet walked in.
She sat here in her chair,
Smiling into the fire;
He who played stood there,
Bowing it higher and higher.
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Childlike, I danced in a dream;
Blessing emblazoned that day;
Everything glowed with a gleam;
Yet we were looking away!
W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart
All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my
heart.
The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my
heart.
When You are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
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He remembers forgotten Beauty
When my arms wrap you round I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded from the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
The love-tales wrought with silken thread
By dreaming ladies upon cloth
That has made fat the murderous moth;
The roses that of old time were
Woven by ladies in their hair,
The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
Through many a sacred corridor
Where such grey clouds of incense rose
That only God's eyes did not close:
For that pale breast and lingering hand
Come from a more dream-heavy land,
A more dream-heavy hour than this;
And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
For hours when all must fade like dew,
But flame on flame, and deep on deep,
Throne over throne where in half sleep,
Their swords upon their iron knees,
Brood her high lonely mysteries.
Francis William Bourdillon (1852-1921)
The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one:
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
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Anon (ca. 1900): The Hearse Song
Did you ever think as the hearse rolls by
That some of these days you must surely die?
They'll take you away in a big black hack,
They'll take you away but won't bring you back.
The men with shovels stand all around.
They shovel you into that cold, wet ground.
They shovel in dirt and they throw in rocks.
They don't give a dam if they break the box.
And your eyes drop out and your teeth fall in
And the worms crawl over your mouth and chin;
And the worms crawl out and the worms crawl in
And your limbs drop off of you limb by limb.
Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
Crowned
You came to me bearing bright roses,
Red like the wine of your heart;
You twisted them into a garland
To set me aside from the mart.
Red roses to crown me your lover,
And I walked aureoled and apart.
Enslaved and encircled, I bore it,
Proud token of my gift to you.
The petals waned paler, and shriveled,
And dropped; and the thorns started through.
Bitter thorns to proclaim me your lover,
A diadem woven with rue.
Arthur Symons (1865-1945)
Kisses
Sweet, can I sing you the song of your kisses?
How soft is this one, how subtle this is,
How fluttering swift as a bird's kiss that is,
As a bird that taps at a leafy lattice;
How this one clings and how that uncloses
From bud to flower in the way of roses;
And this through laughter and that through weeping
Swims to the brim where Love lies sleeping;
And this in a pout I snatch, and capture
That in the ecstasy of rapture,
When the odorous red-rose petals part
That my lips may find their way to the heart
Of the rose of the world, your lips, my rose.
But no song knows
The way of my heart to the heart of my rose.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) Sonnets
[1]
I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far, -Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.
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[2]
I only know that every hour with you
Is torture to me, and that I would be
From your two poignant lovelinesses free!
Rainbows, green fire, white diamonds, the fierce blue
Of shimmering ice-bergs, or to be shot through
With lightning or a sword incessantly-Such things have beauty, doubtless; but to me
Mist, shadow, silence--these are lovely, too.
There is no shelter in you anywhere;
Rhythmic intolerable, your burning rays
Trample upon me, withering my breath;
I will be gone, and rid of you, I swear:
To stand upon the peaks of Love always
Proves but that part of Love whose name is Death.
[4]
Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by.
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Or that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Or that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This have I always known: Love is no more
Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales.
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
[3]
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, – so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
Epitaph For A Darling Lady
All her hours were yellow sands,
Blown in foolish whorls and tassels;
Slipping warmly through her hands;
Patted into little castles.
Shiny day on shiny day
Tumble in a rainbow clutter,
As she flipped them all away,
Sent them spinning down the gutter.
Leave for her a red young rose,
Go your way, and save your pity;
She is happy, for she knows
That her dust is very pretty.
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One Perfect Rose
A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet -One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose."
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
Donald Hall (1928-)
Affirmation
To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
In A Station Of The Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Clown in the Moon
My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.
I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.
Dorothi Charles
Concrete Cat (1971)
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Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
When the old junk man Death
Comes to gather up our bodies
And toss them into the sack of oblivion,
I wonder if he will find
The corpse of a white multi-millionaire
Worth more pennies of eternity,
Than the black torso of
A Negro cotton-picker?
Langston Hughes: Suicide's Note
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
e.e. cummings (1894-1962)
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones,and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur,and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh....And eyes big love crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
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e.e. cummings (1894-1962)
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
changing everything carefully
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and from moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and
without breaking anything.
e.e. cummings
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)
e.e. cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
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no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
A Ballad of Two Knights
Two knights rode forth at early dawn
A-seeking maids to wed,
Said one, "My lady must be fair,
With gold hair on her head."
Then spake the other knight-at-arms:
"I care not for her face,
But she I love must be a dove
For purity and grace."
And each knight blew upon his horn
And went his separate way,
And each knight found a lady-love
Before the fall of day.
But she was brown who should have had
The shining yellow hair -I ween the knights forgot their words
Or else they ceased to care.
For he who wanted purity
Brought home a wanton wild,
And when each saw the other knight
I ween that each knight smiled.
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
W. Owen (1893-1918)
Maundy Thursday
Between the brown hands of a server-lad
The silver cross was offered to be kissed.
The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad,
And knelt reluctantly, half-prejudiced.
(And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.)
Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had,
(And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.)
Young children came, with eager lips and glad.
(These kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.)
Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte.
Above the crucifix I bent my head:
The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead:
And yet I bowed, yea, kissed - my lips did cling.
(I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.)
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
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Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
Epitaph on a Tyrant
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
Cinderella
The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,
Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan
Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels
Begin on tilted violins to span
The whole revolving tall glass palace hall
Where guests slide gliding into light like wine;
Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall
Reflecting in a million flagons' shine,
And glided couples all in whirling trance
Follow holiday revel begun long since,
Until near twelve the strange girl all at once
Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince
As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk
She hears the caustic ticking of the clock.
Conversation Among the Ruins
Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
And the fabulous lutes and peacocks, rending the net
Of all decorum which holds the whirlwind back.
Now, rich order of walls is fallen; rooks croak
Above the appalling ruin; in bleak light
Of your stormy eye, magic takes flight
Like a daunted witch, quitting castle when real days break.
Fractured pillars frame prospects of rock;
While you stand heroic in coat and tie, I sit
Composed in Grecian tunic and psyche-knot,
Rooted to your black look, the play turned tragic:
Which such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate,
What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?
The Rival
If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.
Both of you are great light borrowers.
Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected,
And your first gift is making stone out of everything.
I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,
Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,
Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous,
And dying to say something unanswerable.
The moon, too, abuses her subjects,
But in the daytime she is ridiculous.
Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,
Arrive through the mailslot with loving regularity,
White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide.
No day is safe from news of you,
Walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me.
26
Mirror
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Ted Hughes (1930-1998): Lovesong
He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains
Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Off that moment's brink and into nothing
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop
In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage
In the morning they wore each other's face
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Joyce Grenfell (1910-1979)
If I should go before the rest of you
Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone,
Nor when I'm gone speak in a Sunday voice,
But be the usual selves that I have known.
Weep if you must,
Parting is hell,
But life goes on,
So sing as well.
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
One Art (From The Complete Poems 1927-1979)
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Adcock, Fleur (1934-)
Against Coupling
I write in praise of the solitary act:
of not feeling a trespassing tongue
forced into one's mouth, one's breath
smothered, nipples crushed against the
ribcage, and that metallic tingling
in the chin set off by a certain odd nerve:
unpleasure. Just to avoid those eyes would help--such eyes as a young girl draws life from,
listening to the vegetal
rustle within her, as his gaze
stirs polypal fronds in the obscure
sea-bed of her body, and her own eyes blur.
There is much to be said for abandoning
this no longer novel exercise--for not 'participating in
a total experience'---when
one feels like the lady in Leeds who
had seen The Sound of Music eighty-six-times;
or more, perhaps, like the school drama mistress
producing A Midsummer Night's Dream
for the seventh year running, with
yet another cast from 5B.
Pyramus and Thisbe are dead, but
the hole in the wall can still be troublesome.
I advise you, then, to embrace it without
encumbrance. No need to set the scene,
dress up (or undress), make speeches.
Five minutes of solitude are
enough---in the bath, or to fill
that gap between the Sunday papers and lunch.
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Choices
There was never just one book for the desert island,
one perfectly tissue-typed aesthetic match,
that wouldn't drive you crazy within six months;
just as there was never one all-purpose
ideal outfit, unquestionably right
for wearing at the ball on the Titanic
and also in the lifeboat afterwards.
I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
Your gentleness is moulded still by words
From me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
From me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
Your closest relatives, and who purveyed
The harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
And we are kind to snails.
And never, a fortiori, just one man;
if it's not their conversation or their habits
(more irritating, even, than your own--and who would you wish those on?) it's their bodies:
two-thirds of them get fatter by the minute,
the bony ones turn out to be psychopaths,
and the few in the middle range go bald.
Roger McGough (1937-)
Love (1971)
middle aged
couple playing
ten nis
when the
game ends
and they
go home
the net
will still
be be
tween them
Somehow you'll end up there, on the island,
in your old jeans and that comic dressing-gown
one of the fast-fatteners always laughed at,
with a blank notebook (all you've brought to read)
and a sea-and-sun-proof crate of cigarettes;
but with nobody, thank God, to lecture you
on how he managed to give them up.
For a Five-Year-Old
A snail is climbing up the window-sill
Into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
That it would be unkind to leave it there:
It might crawl to the floor; we must take care
That no one squashes it. You understand,
And carry it outside, with careful hand,
To eat a daffodil.
Craig Raine (1944-)
A Martian Sends a Postcard Home
Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.
I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.
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Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:
At night, when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs
then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.
and read about themselves in colour, with their eyelids shut.
Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.
Linda Pastan (1932-)
Jump Cabling
When our cars
touched
When you lifted the hood
of mine
To see the intimate workings
underneath,
When we were bound
together
By a pulse of pure
energy,
When my car like the
princess
In the tale woke with a
start,
I thought why not ride the rest of the way together?
Model T is a room with the lock inside a key is turned to free the world
for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.
But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.
In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.
If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep
with sounds. And yet, they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.
Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room
with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises
alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.
Seamus Heaney (1939-): From Clearances – 3
In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984
When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other's work would bring us to our senses.
So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives-Never closer the whole rest of our lives.
30
Act of Union
I
To-night, a first movement, a pulse,
As if the rain in bogland gathered head
To slip and flood: a bog-burst,
A gash breaking open the ferny bed.
Your back is a firm line of eastern coast
And arms and legs are thrown
Beyond your gradual hills. I caress
The heaving province where our past has grown.
I am the tall kingdom over your shoulder
That you would neither cajole nor ignore.
Conquest is a lie. I grow older
Conceding your half-independant shore
Within whose borders now my legacy
Culminates inexorably.
II
And I am still imperially
Male, leaving you with pain,
The rending process in the colony,
The battering ram, the boom burst from within.
The act sprouted an obsinate fifth column
Whose stance is growing unilateral.
His heart beneath your heart is a wardrum
Mustering force. His parasitical
And ignmorant little fists already
Beat at your borders and I know they're cocked
At me across the water. No treaty
I foresee will salve completely your tracked
And stretchmarked body, the big pain
That leaves you raw, like opened ground, again
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
Hugo Williams (1942-)
Siren Song
I phoned from time to time, to see if she's
changed the music on her answerphone.
'Tell me in two words,' goes the recording,
'what you were going to tell in a thousand.'
I peer into that thought, like peering out
to sea at night, hearing the sound of
waves breaking on the rocks, knowing she
is there, listening, waiting for me to
speak.
Once in a while she'll pick up the phone
and her voice sings to me out of the past.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up
as I catch her smell for a second.
Gavin Ewart (1916-1995)
The Old Couples (For Edward and Edwina)
Of course they realise
there isn't much time left--one old partner will soon be bereaved and bereft--one day a sun will rise
that finds only one in the bed--because the other one has been taken away, dead.
Proverbs and old saws
bear witness a thousand times
to this---so do all clocks and church chimes,
it's one of Nature's Laws,
but as it happens to me and you
it's always going to strike us as something new.
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Gather ye rosebuds
or Live well say the bores
who are always sermonising the drunks and whores,
and some days have been duds ...
with Death and Time on the brain,
we should make the most of the ones that remain.
Gillian Clarke (1937-)
A Photograph from Space
Fluorescence hums overhead
and town after town winks
along the curve of the bay.
From far out in the dark
the map is luminous.
Our jewels gleam,
North America, Europe
drawn in light,
while Africa is a dark house,
India missing from the photograph,
relatives no one remembered to call
for the family picture.
Anna Adams (1926-) (from Green Resistance: New and Selected
Poems, 1996)
Black-House Woman
I am, myself, the house that shelters them.
My nerves extend into this skirt of stone,
this shawl of thatch. These windows are my eyes.
I am a hollow room, enfolding men.
The peat fire is my heart. This hearth is warm
always, for them, but through the open door
sometimes shy happiness steals in to me.
The sun lays yellow carpets on the floor.
My children bring home hunger, men bring storm,
and I absorb in quiet the sea-bird's cry,
the breakers' roar, till in the sleeping room
oceans and mountains lie.
They leave no room for me in my own womb;
by them, and by their dreams, my lap is filled;
I spread my skirts to shield them, I am home,
content to be my one forgotten child.
From Mrs Orpheus To Her Son
Love, not music, let me through the gate--the one-way turnstile to the Underworld
whose dreadful gravity tugged at my heart
and forced me to descend through tunnelled ground
into the land of shades where money failed--although they say the password's 'cash-in-hand'.
Love let me through dim booking-halls, all filled
with demons in official caps and badges,
and rife with omens. Someone had been killed.
I fled the hubbub to the outer edges--a basement in a suburb of this town
where you wrote messages on grubby pages:
although they made no sense you wrote them down,
thinking to crack a code in random words
dictated by the voice behind your frown.
32
'You cannot live in Hades with the dead:
escape with me. I think I know a way.'
Obediently you followed where I led
up the steep track towards the common day;
but as the darkness drained into the earth
your shadow took the heaviness of clay.
Just as one's body, weightless in the bath,
grows leaden climbing out, you could not haul
one limb after another up the path.
I could not pull you up but let you fall,
and so you sank into the murky air.
It takes a Hercules to drag from Hell
one soul. An aging woman cannot bear
her son again. My heart, grown like a stone,
was all that I could carry. The cave where
I lost you, you must struggle through alone.
James K. Baxter (1926-1972)
The Perfect Wife
Watching that indisputable paragon,
His wife, dial 8-8-8 on the telephone,
While the meat softened in the pressure cooker
And sheets flapped at the window like white sails,
Observing how the silk and nylon sheath
Contained her like the shroud of Cleopatra
In a dry tomb where wheat grains cannot sprout,
And meditating on her many virtues
(Her patience with the children, her sweet breath,
Her durability, her polished nails,
Her voice that never rose into a shout,
Her thrift, her strict obedience to the curfew,
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
Her sex presented like a box of dice
Each Saturday)---considering these matters,
A sense that he did not deserve her rose
Like vomit in his throat. That night
When she was at a meeting being nice
To Asian students, he packed all his clothes
In a big suitcase, wondered should he write
A note, but left none---caught a train and boat
To another town---there lived at the People's Palace,
Drunk, dirty, celibate, having seen the light.
Karianne Ellingsen
Your stone
I have become the stone
the hardened exterior
which you
throw
high into this darkening sky
higher, higher
you, so patiently waiting
for my descent
for me to come crashing back
to this earth
which we built as one
yet I think I’ll stay
up here
for awhile
the darkness comforts
it gives the cold reassurances
I have become the stone
which I taught myself to hate
and you have stopped looking
and I can’t find my way back
so I remain
in My sky
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for your face was never seen here
hat in itself is enough
to make me stay.
No, my dear, he hadn't
changed, and neither had I.
I was still married then
Kevin Crossley-Holland (1941-)
Chinese Boxes [From Poems from East Anglia (1997)]
and not quite a widow.
Tom did take time to die,
and most old husbands do.
Well, he came again. That's
what we say in Suffolk
when that's dead and risen.
After seventeen years,
and the very day. He
never did understand.
My poor heart! Like an old
pigeon threshing about
inside the folded arms
of my sycamore tree.
Sometimes now I see him
trampling the chamomile,
and leaning on the stack
of bruised packing cases
in the oily garage.
Always so ill at ease.
Troubled inside his clothes.
That was his size, you see,
a bit of a monster,
I suppose: a kind of
sorry Suffolk Falstaff.
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
We Real Cool
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Mimi Khalvati
La Belle Dame From In White Ink (1991)]
Why brood on willow water? Surely hope
is something more than rope to hang a mood
on willow. Hang garlands on the stair! Come.
(Wainscot mice will steal a swatch that dwarfs them
in their lair, quick as any water rat
to spot the knot or head of pin to show
with monumental wit what good design
can do with trophies from the tide ...) Come in.
I'll sweep the hearth; you make yourself at home.
Let's close the shutters: we'll mull things over
34
and leave pale knights to loiter where they will
(moon along the banks where dreams of virgins
hold them in thrall to their own misgivings ...)
We'll call the squirrels in: let's have a ball.
Here's my store I'll share with you: an apple,
a loaf I baked myself, a nut or two.
Dusk will soon be gone and tonight we'll see
how big the moon is. Come here by the fire.
Let me smell your hair. Weeds are hanging there,
I'll pick them out. Next time, you'll know better
than to brood. Those banks of sedge and sorrel
never did do any good ... water's filthy ...
Come on, there's a good girl. Keep your head down.
(Look! I told you! Here they come, scurrying.)
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
Margaret Atwood (1939-) (From The Circle Game, 1998)
This Is a Photograph of Me
It was taken some time ago.
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;
then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.
Alan Sillitoe (1928-)
Friend died [From Collected Poems (1993)]
Tears stop, and suffering
Goes the next level down,
Deeper when tears won't start.
Pain outlives, the hollow soul burns
Till cured by nothing less
Than the same death for me.
In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.
You are world-finished
Blacked out, sea-driven
Beyond soil and nowhere,
Empty caves filled
By your heavy death-weighing:
It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion
The sea and moon fought
And their vicious clamour killed
The survivor who is empty
And the winner who is dead.
but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)
(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.
I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.
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Brian Patten (1946)
Hair today, no her tomorrow
I've been upstairs-she said
Oh yes?-I said
I found a hair-she said
A hair?-I said
In the bed-she said
From a head?-I said
It's not mine-she said
Was it black?-I said
It was-she said
I'll explain-I said
You swine-she said
Not quite-I said
I'm going-she said
Please don't-I said
I hate you!-she said
You do?-I said
Of course-she said
But why?-I said
That black hair-she said
A pity-I said
Time for truth-she said
For confessions?-I said
Me too-she said
You what?-I said
Someone else-she said
Oh dear-I said
So there!-she said
Ah well-I said
Guess who?-she said
Don't say-I said
I will-she said
You would-I said
Your friend-she said
Oh damn-I said
And his friend-she said
Him too?-I said
And the rest-she said
Good God-I said
What's that?-she said
What's what?-I said
That noise?-she said
Upstairs-I said
Yes-she said
The new cat-I said
A cat?-she said
It's black-I said
Black?-she said
Long-haired-I said
Oh no-she said
Oh yes-I said
Oh shit!-she said
Goodbye-I said
I lied-she said
You lied?-I said
Of course-she said
About my friend?-I said
Y-ess-she said
And the others?-I said
Ugh-she said
How odd-I said
I'm forgiven?-she said
Of course-I said
I'll stay?-she said
Please don't-I said
But why?-she said
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I lied-I said
About what?-she said
The new cat-I said
it's white-I said
I ran with that weight and fell down,
simply so children could laugh
at the noise of the stones
cutting through my belly,
Agha Shahid Ali (1949-2001) (From A Walk Through the Yellow
Pages, 1987) The Wolf's Postcript to 'Little Red Riding Hood'
First, grant me my sense of history:
I did it for posterity,
for kindergarten teachers
and a clear moral:
Little girls shouldn't wander off
in search of strange flowers,
and they mustn't speak to strangers.
at the garbage spilling out
with a perfect sense of timing,
just when the tale
should have come to an end.
And then grant me my generous sense of plot:
Couldn't I have gobbled her up
right there in the jungle?
Why did I ask her where her grandma lived?
As if I, a forest-dweller,
didn't know of the cottage
under the three oak trees
and the old woman lived there
all alone?
As if I couldn't have swallowed her years before?
And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf,
now my only reputation.
But I was no child-molester
though you'll agree she was pretty.
And the huntsman:
Was I sleeping while he snipped
my thick black fur
and filled me with garbage and stones?
Martha Collins (1940-) (From Some Things Words Can Do, 1999)
The Good Gray Wolf
Wanted that red, wanted everything tucked inside
that red, that body, it seemed, turned inside out,
that walking flower, petals furled, leaved
by the trees by the forest path, the yellow basket
marking the center-wanted to raise that rose
petal skin to my gray face, barely to brush
that warmth with my cold nose, but I knew she'd cry
for mercy, help, the mother who'd filled the basket
that morning, Wolf, she'd cry, Wolf, and she'd
be right, why should she try to see beyond
the fur, the teeth, the cartoon tongue wet
with anticipation?
And so I hid behind
a tree as she passed on the path, then ran, as you know,
to her grandmother's house, but not as they say, I knocked
and when she answered I asked politely for her
advice. And then, I swear, she offered me tea,
her bonnet, an extra gown, she gave me more
than advice, she tucked me into a readied bed,
she smoothed my rough fur, I felt light
as a flower, myself, stamened and stemmed in her
sweet sheets.
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Not ate her, you see, but rather became
her, flannel chest for the red head, hood
that hid the pearl that when I touched it flushed
and shone. What big eyes! and she opened the cape,
tongue, mouth to her mouth, and opened everything,
I crooned, crawling inside, wolf to flower,
gray to rose, grandmother into child
again, howl to whisper, dagger to cloak,
my mother father animal arms, disarmed
by love, were all she ever dreamed of.
Matthew Rohrer (1970-)
Credo
I believe there is something else
entirely going on but no single
person can ever know it,
so we fall in love.
It could also be true that what we use
everyday to open cans was something
much nobler, that we'll never recognize.
I believe the woman sleeping beside me
doesn't care about what's going on
outside, and her body is warm
with trust
which is a great beginning.
Sophie Hannah (1971-)
Wrong again [From The Hero and the Girl Next Door (1995)]
I did the right thing once (may God reward me);
Restrained myself. I took a moral stance.
Virtue, I found, was not my thing---it bored me
Rigid, and I would like another chance
To earn myself a wicked reputation
Equal to yours. I'll match you sin for sin.
Lies, promiscuity, inebriation--It all sounds lovely. When can we begin?
I used to be afraid of rumours spreading.
You made my fear seem fussy, immature.
Here's my new motto, then: just change the bedding
And carry on exactly as before.
A single, happy night beneath your quilt
Is all I want. I'll risk post-coital guilt.
Love Me Slender [from The Hero and the Girl Next Door (1995)]
LOVELY LESLEY LOST SIX STONE AND WON HER MAN
(headline from the Sun , 30 June 1993)
You have to be size ten to get a bloke.
You must be slim, petite, and never podgy.
Since Stout is out you're left with Diet Coke
And other things that taste extremely dodgy.
You must be thin. Don't make me say it twice.
Size ten, or even twelve, but never fatter.
You may, in other ways, be very nice
But if you're overweight it doesn't matter.
You have to shed the pounds. It's such a drag.
You can't rely on brains or sense of humour.
It isn't true that many men will shag
Virtually anyone---that's just a rumour.
You need a model's figure, skin and bone,
Straight up and down without a single curve,
Unless you want to end up on your own,
Which, frankly, would be just what you deserve.
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The keyboard and the mouse
I am myself and in my house
But if I had my way
I'd be the keyboard and the mouse
Under your hands all day.
I'd be the C prompt on the screen.
We could have had some fun
This morning, if I'd only been
Word Perfect 5.1.
I'd be your hard and floppy discs,
I'd be your laser jet,
Your ampersands and asterisks I'd be in Somerset
Rotating on your swivel chair.
The journey takes a while
But press return and I'll be there.
Do not delete this file.
Pessimism for Beginners
When you’re waiting for someone to e-mail,
When you’re waiting for someone to call –
Young or old, gay or straight, male or female –
Don’t assume that they’re busy, that’s all.
Don’t conclude that their letter went missing
Or they must be away for a while;
Think instead that they’re cursing and hissing –
They’ve decided you’re venal and vile,
That your eyes should be pecked by an eagle.
Oh, to bash in your head with a stone!
But since this is unfairly illegal
They’ve no choice but to leave you alone.
Be they friend, parent, sibling or lover
Or your most stalwart colleague at work,
Don’t pursue them. You’ll only discover
That your once-irresistible quirk
Is no longer appealing. Far from it.
Everything that you are and you do
Makes them spatter their basin with vomit.
They loathe Hitler and Herpes and you.
Once you take this on board, life gets better.
You give no-one your hopes to destroy.
The most cursory phone call or letter
Makes you pickle your heart in pure joy.
It’s so different from what you expected!
They do not want to gouge out your eyes!
You feel neither abused nor rejected –
What a stunning and perfect surprise.
This approach I’m endorsing will net you
A small portion of boundless delight.
Keep believing the world’s out to get you.
Now and then you might not be proved right.
No Wonder
This love looks set to grow extremely tall.
I chart its weekly progress on the wall
the way my mum made pencil marks above
my sister’s head and mine. I’ve called it love
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since it began, but now I have some proof infatuation stops before the roof
while love climbs bravely up to bash its head.
The bleeding starts. No wonder hearts are red.
The End of Love
The end of love should be a big event.
It should involve the hiring of a hall.
Why the hell not? It happens to us all.
Why should it pass without acknowledgement?
Suits should be dry-cleaned, invitations sent.
Whatever form it takes - a tiff, a brawl The end of love should be a big event.
It should involve the hiring of a hall.
Better than the unquestioning descent
Into the trap of silence, than the crawl
From visible to hidden, door to wall.
Get the announcements made, the money spent.
The end of love should be a big event.
It should involve the hiring of a hall.
SONGS
Mark Knopfler (performed by Tina Turner)
Private Dancer
Well, the men come in these places
And the men are all the same.
You don’t look at their faces
And you don’t ask their names.
You don’t think of them as human,
You don’t think of them at all,
You keep your mind on the money
Keeping your eyes on the wall.
Chorus
I’m your private dancer,
A dancer for money,
I’ll do what you want me to do.
I’m your private dancer,
A dancer for money,
Any old music will do.
I wanna make a million dollars,
I wanna live out by the sea,
Have a husband and some children,
Yeah, I guess I want a family.
Well, the men come in these places
And the men are all the same.
You don’t look at their faces
And you don’t ask their names.
Repeat chorus twice
Deutschmarks or dollars,
American express will nicely, thank you,
Let me loosen up your collar,
Tell me, do you wanna see me do the shimmy again?
Cole Porter
Love for sale
When the only sound on the empty street
is the heavy tread of the heavy feet
that belong to a lonesome cop
I open shop.
The moon so long has been gazing down
on the warward ways of this wayward town
her smile becomes a smirk, I go to work.
40
Love for sale,
appetizing young love for sale,
love thats fresh and still unspoiled
love thats only slightly soiled,
love for sale.
Who will buy?
Who would like to sample my supply?
Who's prepared to pay the price
for a trip to paradise?
Love for sale.
Let the poets pipe of love
in their childish ways,
I know every type of love
better far than they;
if you want the thrill of love
I've been through the mill of love:
old love,
new love,
every love but true love.
Love for sale,
appetizing young love for sale,
if you want to buy my wares
follow me and climb the stairs.
Love for sale.
Miss Otis regrets
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today, Madam,
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today.
She is sorry to be delayed,
But last evening down in Lover's Lane she strayed, Madam,
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today.
When she woke up and found, that her dream of love was gone,
Madam, She ran to the man who had lead her so far astray.
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
And from under a velvet gown,
She drew a gun and shot her lover down, Madam,
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today.
When the mob came and got her and dragged her from the jail, Madam,
They strung her from the old willow cross the way.
And the moment before she died,
She lifted up her lovely head and cried,
Madam, Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today,
Miss Otis regrets... she's unable to lunch today.
Brush up your Shakespeare (Kiss me Kate, Cole Porter, 1948 )
MOBSTERS:
The girls today in society
Go for classical poetry,
So to win their hearts one must quote with ease
Aeschylus and Euripides.
But the poet of them all
Who will start 'em simply ravin'
Is the poet people call
The bard of Stratford-on-Avon.
Brush up your Shakespeare,
Start quoting him now.
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow.
Just declaim a few lines from "Othella"
And they think you're a helluva fella.
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopaterer ,
If she fights when her clothes you are mussing,
What are clothes? "Much Ado About Nussing."
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kowtow.
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With the wife of the British embessida
Try a crack out of "Troilus and Cressida,"
If she says she won't buy it or tike it
Make her tike it, what's more, "As You Like It."
If she says your behavior is heinous
Kick her right in the "Coriolanus."
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kowtow,
And they'll all kowtow,
And they'll all kowtow.
I hate men (Kiss me Kate, Cole Porter, 1948 )
KATHARINE:
I hate men.
I can't abide 'em even now and then.
Than ever marry one of them, I'd rest a virgin rather,
For husbands are a boring lot and only give you bother.
Of course, I'm awfully glad that mother had to marry father,
But I hate men.
Of all the types I've ever met within our democracy,
I hate most the athlete with his manner bold and brassy,
He may have hair upon his chest but, sister, so has Lassie.
Oh, I hate men!
I hate men.
Their worth upon this earth I dinna ken.
Avoid the trav'ling salesman though a tempting
Tom he may be,
From China he will bring you jade and perfume from Araby,
But don't forget 'tis he who'll have the fun and thee the baby,
Oh I hate men.
If thou shouldst wed a businessman, be wary, oh, be wary.
He'll tell you he's detained in town on business necessary,
His bus'ness is the bus'ness which he gives his secretary,
Oh I hate men!
Herman Hupfeld
As Time Goes By
You must remember this:
A kiss is still a kiss,
A sigh is just a sigh,
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.
And when two lovers woo
They still say: “I love you”,
On that you can rely,
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by.
Moonlight and love songs —never out of date—
Hearts full of passion —jealousy and hate—
Woman needs man —and man must have his mate—
That no one can deny.
It’s still the same old story:
A fight for love and glory,
A case of do or die.
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.
Leonard Cohen
As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you and never will.
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Through windows in the dark
The children come, the children go
Like arrows with no target
Like shackles made of snow.
True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one,
It’s lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun.
As a falling leaf may rest
A moment on the air
So your head upon my breast
So my hand upon your hair.
And many nights endure
Without a moon or star
So will we endure
When one is gone and far.
True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one,
It’s lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun.
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
Candy came from out on the island
In the backroom she was everybodys darling
But she never lost her head
Even when she was given head
She says, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
Said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
And the coloured girls go
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Little Joe never once gave it away
Everybody had to pay and pay
A hustle here and a hustle there
New york city is the place where they said
Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
I said hey Joe, take a walk on the wild side
Sugar plum fairy came and hit the streets
Lookin for soul food and a place to eat
Went to the apollo
You should have seen him go go go
They said, hey sugar, take a walk on the wild side
I said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
All right, huh.
Lou Reed
Walk on the Wild Side
Holly came from Miami Fl.a.
Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A
Jackie is just speeding away
Thought she was James Dean for a day
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her leg and then he was a she
She says, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
Said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side.
Then I guess she had to crash
Valium would have helped that dash
She said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
I said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side
And the coloured girls say
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
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The Knights of the Round Table (Spamalot, John Du Prez and Eric
Idle, 2005)
GIRLS:
Camelot
The town that never sleeps
It's Camelot!
ALL KNIGHTS:
We're knights of the round table
We dance when e're we're able
We do routines and chorus scenes
With footwork impecc-able
We dine well here in Camelot
We eat ham and jam and spam a lot.
We're knights of the round table,
Our shows are for-mid-able
But many times, we're given rythmes
That are quite unsing-able.
We're opera mad in Camelot,
We sing from the diaphragm a lot.
(dance sequence)
PRINCIPAL KNIGHTS:
We're knights of the round table
Although we live a fable
We're not just bums
With royal mums,
We've brains that are quite a-ble,
We've a busy life in Camelot.
SOLO MAN:
I have to push the pram a lot.
(dance sequence)
ARTHUR:
Ladies and gentlemen - The Lady of the Lake.
LADY OF THE LAKE:
Once in every show
There comes a song like.......this.
It starts off soft and low
And ends up with a kiss
Oh, where is the song that goes like this?
Goes like this?
A sentimental song
That cast a magic spell.
They will all hum along
And we'll all overact, overact like hell.
'Cos this is the song
Yes, this is the song
Oh this is the song that goes.......like
(Lady of the Lake - scats)
(Arthur - scats)
LADY OF THE LAKE:
They're Knights of the Round Table
ARTHUR:
They dance when e'er they're able
LADY OF THE LAKE:
They're Knights
ARTHUR:
Not days, but Knights
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LADY AND ARTHUR:
Not dawn, not dusk
Not late afternoon
But Knights of the Round Table
Round Table
Round Table
Round Table
ALL:
Round Table
Round Table
Round Table
So try your luck in Camelot.
Run amok in Camelot.
It doesn't suck in Camelot.
(spoken)
WE WON!
(sung)
We're Knights of the Round Table
We dance when e'er we're able
We do routines and gory scenes
That are to hot for cable.
We eat ham and jam,
We eat ham and jam and spam a lot
ALL:
(spoken)
SPAMALOT!
Amy Winehouse
Back to Black
He left no time to regret,
Kept his dick wet
Técnicas del Comentario de Textos en Inglés 101 (curso 2008-2009)
With his same old safe bet;
Me and my head high
And my tears dry,
Get on without my guy;
You went back to what you knew
So far removed from all that we went through
And I tread a troubled track.
My odds are stacked
I'll go back to black.
We only said good-bye with words,
I died a hundred times,
You go back to her
And I go back to.....
I go back to us.
I love you much,
It's not enough;
You love blow and I love puff
And life is like a pipe
And I'm a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside.
We only said good-bye with words,
I died a hundred times,
You go back to her
And I go back to.....
Black, black, black, black, black, black, black,
I go back to
I go back to
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We only said good-bye with words,
I died a hundred times,
You go back to her
And I go back to.....
Over futile odds
And laughed at by the gods
And now the final frame
Love is a losing game.
NATASHA BEDINGFIELD
Love is a losing game
For you I was a flame,
Love is a losing game,
Five story fire as you came,
Love is a losing game.
Why do I wish I never played?
Oh what a mess we made,
And now the final frame,
Love is a losing game.
Played out by the band,
Love is a losing hand,
More than I could stand,
Love is a losing hand.
Self professed... profound
Till the chips were down
...know you're a gambling man
Love is a losing hand.
Though I'm rather blind
Love is a fate resigned
Memories mar my mind
Love is a fate resigned.
Single
Ah yeah that's right
All you single people out there
This is for you
I'm not waitin' around for a man to save me
(Cos I'm happy where I am)
Don't depend on a guy to validate me
(No no)
I don't need to be anyone's baby
(Is that so hard to understand?)
No I don't need another half to make me whole
Make your move if you want doesn't mean I will or won't
I'm free to make my mind up you either got it or you don't
[Chorus:]
This is my current single status
My declaration of independence
There's no way I'm tradin' places
Right now a star's in the ascendant
I'm single
(Right now)
That's how I wanna be
I'm single
(Right now)
That's how I wanna be
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To big up the love
Ah yeah Uh Huh that's right
Don't need to be on somebody's arm to look good
(I like who I am)
I'm not saying I don't wanna fall in love 'cos I would
I'm not gonna get hooked up just 'cos you say I should
(Can't romance on demand)
I'm gonna wait so I'm sorry if you misunderstood
Got the measure of the man in you
It’s more than the sum of the quarters
It’s true what they say
You’ve got to big up the love
I've been checkin' nice things you do
Standing in the Starbucks queue
You buy coffee for a stranger
Who’s down on their luck
[Chorus]
Everything in it's right time everything in it's right place
I know I'll settle down one day
But 'til then I like it this way it's my way
Eh I like it this way
Random acts of kindness flow
Compassion from a hand I’d like to hold
It does it for me
And I can’t get enough
Make your move if you want doesn't mean I will or won't
I'm free to make my mind up you either got it or you don't
'Til then I'm single
Ohh
Don’t confuse me when I say
Ohh
Please don’t take this the wrong way
This is my current single status
My declaration of independence
There's no way I'm tradin' places
Right now a star's in the ascendant
You can lead a heart to love
But you can’t make it fall
I’m tired of loving small
‘Cause…
Size Matters
Bu-bada Bu-bada Bu-bada bada ba ba ba
Bu-bada Bu-bada Bu-bada bada ba ba ba
Size matters (size matters)
And not how you think
I’m talking bout your heart
And what you do with it
I’ve been sizing you up and stuff
Watching you live life large
Enough for the both of us
The more seeds you plant them
More flowers will grow
So…
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Big up the love ‘till it overflows
(size matters)
Most blokes to shallow to swim in
Only interested in one thing
It’s all so meaningless
'Cause puddles dry up
A view of the world so small
It limits the size of the dream
And you achieve in it
Big it up, big it up
(big up the love)
Big it up, big it up
(A new panorama)
And you put your arms around me
I see my life how it should be
You can lead a heart to love
But you can’t make it fall
I’m tired of loving small
‘Cause…
Size matters (size matters)
And not how you think
I’m talking bout your heart
And what you do with it
The more seeds you plant them
More flowers will grow
So…
Big up the love ‘till it overflows
(Big up the love)
Big up the love ‘till it overflows
Big it up, big it up
(big it up)
Big it up, big it up
Oh Oh
Ohhh...
You can lead a heart to love
But you can’t make it fall
I’m tired of loving small
Bu-bada Bu-bada Bu-bada bada ba ba ba
Size matters (size matters)
And not how you think
I’m talking bout your heart
And what you do with it
The more seeds you plant them
More flowers will grow
So…
Big up the love ‘till it overflows
(Big up the love)
Big up the love ‘till it overflows
Big it up, big it up
(big it up)
Big it up, big it up
It’s the little things you do
That show me how big you are
Big up the love ‘till it overflows.