The Night-Dances

A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!

And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics?

Such pure leaps and spirals -
Surely they travel

The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift

Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.

Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,

And the tiger, embellishing itself -
Spots, and a spread of hot petals.

The comets
Have such a space to cross,

Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off -

Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling

Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given

These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes

Six-sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair

Touching and melting.
Nowhere.

Sylvia Plath

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright




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
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart,
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd 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?

William Blake (1757-1827)

Much Madness is divinest Sense



Much Madness is divinest Sense
To a discerning Eye
Much Sense--the starkest Madness
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail
Assent-and you are sane
Demur-you're straightway dangerous
And handled with a Chain

Emily Dickinson (nr 435)

I hear sighs in zephyr breezes



Melancholy hours

The fotunate ones profane nature.
Earth is a sanctuary of sorrow.
Dawn drops a tear of unknown pain;
the wan orphan evenings mourn
and the select soul intones sadly.

I hear sighs in zephyr breezes.
I see sadness on the violets.
I feel the painful life of the rose;
the meadows alive with mysterious sorrow;
and within the dense forest echoes a sob.

People honor the fortunate ones
and poetasters sing hymns to them.
But Nature's portals are closed
to all those who indifferently, callously deride,
aliens who deride in a unfortunate land.

Kafavis in: The complete poems of Cafafy, translated by Rae Dalven 1976

'He woke tot darkness'


Rodin (1840-1917) Orpheus and Euridyce

Orpheus

That night he dreamed -- when at last he slept,
after staring long at a stone by his face,
willing it to weep as he did not, his eyes
too stunned and hot for tears -- he dreamed
he walked again inside the narrow place;
behind him slowly came Euridice;
he dreamed he walked and did not turn,
kept eyes and face most forward, towards the light
that marked the entrance to the world;
and when he reached it, did not turn
til Hermes tapped his shoulder.
Even then he stood a moment longer, waiting;
sure, the pact inviolate, he spun
and saw her, in the sunlight. But
the dream did not end there. He saw himself,
stone-faced, dissapointed. Shouldn't she (he
seemed, he dreamed, to think) be grateful, glad?
Her kisses, tears, her smiles, he thought, were false.
She touched his arm, frowned, asked,
"is something wrong?" He shook
her hand away. "It's nothing. Nothing, love."
Then turned and slowly walked into the shade
of nearby trees, lay down, and slept.

He woke (not in the dream, but truly woke)
to darkness; nighttime still, still painful eyes,
and loose as a snapped string lay staring.

Rachel Vassilievna Trousdale