Lineage
Margaret Walker
My grandmothers were strong.
They followed plows and bent to toil.
They moved through fields sowing seeds.
They touched earth and grain grew.
They were full of sturdiness and singing.
My grandmothers were strong.
My grandmothers are full of memories
Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay
With veins rolling roughly over quick hands
They have many clean words to say.
My grandmothers were strong.
Why am I not as they?
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The Courage That My Mother Had
Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Courage that my mother had
Wend with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.
The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.
Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.
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Incident in a Rose Garden
Donald Justice
The gardener came running.
An old man, out of breath.
Fear had given him legs.
Sir, I encountered Death
Just now among the roses.
Thin as a scythe he stood there.
I knew him by his pictures
He had his black coat on,
Black gloves, a broad black hat.
I think he would have spoken,
Seeing his mouth stood open.
Big it was, with white teeth.
As soon as he beckoned, I ran.
I ran until I found you.
Sir, I am quitting my job.
I want to see my sons
Once more before I die.
I want to see California.
We shook hands; he was off.
And there stood Death in the garden.
Dressed like a Spanish waiter.
He had the air of someone
Who because he likes arriving
At all appointments early
Learns to think himself patient.
I watched him pinch one bloom off
And hold it to his nose—
A connoisseur of roses—
One bloom and then another.
They strewed the earth around him.
Sir, you must be that stranger
Who threatened my gardener.
This is my property, sir.
I welcome only friends here.
Death grinned, and his eyes lit up
With the pale glow of those lanterns
That workmen carry sometimes
To light their way through the dusk.
Now with great care he slid
The glove from his right hand
And held that out in greeting,
A little cage of bone.
Sir, I knew your father,
And we were friends at the end.
As for your gardener,
I did not threaten him.
Old men mistake my gestures.
I only meant to ask him
To show me to his master.
I take it you are he?
for Mark Strand
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The Seven Ages of Man
William Shakespeare
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
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Song of the Open Road
Walt Whitman
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
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The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that passing there had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no stop had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and II took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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The Tyger
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies 5
Burnt the fire of thy eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 10
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp 15
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered Heaven with their tears:
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
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The Lamb
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid the feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight, 5
Softest clothing, wooly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
10
20
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild; 15
He became a little child.
We called Him by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee! 20
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Bonny Barbara Allan, Traditional Ballad
IT was in and about the Martinmas time,
When the green leaves were a falling,
That Sir John Græme, in the West Country,
Fell in love with Barbara Allan.
He sent his man down through the town,
To the place where she was dwelling:
―O haste and come to my master dear,
Gin ye be Barbara Allan.‖
5
O hooly, hooly rose she up,
To the place where he was lying, 10
And when she drew the curtain by,
―Young man, I think you’re dying.‖
―O it’s I’m sick, and very, very sick,
And ’tis a’ for Barbara Allan:‖
―O the better for me ye’s never be, 15
Tho your heart’s blood were a spilling.
―O dinna ye mind, young man,‖ said she,
―When ye was in the tavern a drinking,
That ye made the healths gae round and round,
And slighted Barbara Allan?‖
20
He turned his face unto the wall,
And death was with him dealing:
―Adieu, adieu, my dear friends all,
And be kind to Barbara Allan.‖
And slowly, slowly raise she up, 25
And slowly, slowly left him,
And sighing said, she could not stay,
Since death of life had reft him.
She had not gane a mile but twa,
When she heard the dead-bell ringing, 30
And every jow that the dead-bell gied,
It cry’d, Woe to Barbara Allan!
―O mother, mother, make my bed!
O make it saft and narrow!
Since my love died for me to-day, 35
I’ll die for him to-morrow.‖
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―Gli Occhi Di Ch' Io Parlai ,‖ Francesco Petrarcha (Petrarch)
Those eyes, 'neath which my passionate rapture rose,
The arms, hands, feet, the beauty that erewhile
Could my own soul from its own self beguile,
And in a separate world of dreams enclose,
The hair's bright tresses, full of golden glows,
And the soft lightning of the angelic smile
That changed this earth to some celestial isle,
Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows.
And yet I live! Myself I grieve and scorn,
Left dark without the light I loved in vain,
Adrift in tempest on a bark forlorn;
Dead is the source of all my amorous strain,
Dry is the channel of my thoughts outworn,
And my sad harp can sound but notes of pain.
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Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare
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 some time declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breath or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
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Counting the Beats
You, love, and I,
(He whispers) you and I,
And if no more than only you and I
What care you or I?
Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.
Cloudless day,
Night, and a cloudless day,
Yet the huge storm will burst upon their heads one day
From a bitter sky.
Where shall we be,
(She whispers) where shall we be,
When death strikes home, O where then shall we be
Who were you and I?
Not there but here,
(He whispers) only here,
As we are, here, together, now and here,
Always you and I.
Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.
Robert Graves (1895 – 1985)
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