"Queen of things! I dare not die..."

All that's good and great with thee
Stands in deep conspiracy.
Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely
To report thy features only,
And the cold and purple morning
Itself with thoughts of thee adorning,
The leafy dell, the city mart,
Equal trophies of thine art,
E'en the flowing azure air
Thou hast touched for my despair,
And if I languish into dreams,
Again I meet the ardent beams.
Queen of things! I dare not die
In Being's deeps past ear and eye,
Lest there I find the same deceiver,
And be the sport of Fate forever.
Dread power, but dear! if God thou be,
Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me.

From Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Ode to Beauty."

"Loss and Gain"

When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.

But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

A poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

"Swallows Travel To and Fro"

Swallows travel to and fro,
And the great winds come and go,
And the steady breezes blow,
Bearing perfume, bearing love.
Breezes hasten, swallows fly,
Towered clouds forever ply,
And at noonday, you and I
See the same sunshine above.

Dew and rain fall everywhere,
Harvests ripen, flowers are fair,
And the whole round earth is bare
To the moonshine and the sun;
And the live air, fanned with wings,
Bright with breeze and sunshine, brings
Into contact distant things,
And makes all the countries one.

Let us wander where we will,
Something kindred greets us still;
Something seen on vale or hill
Falls familiar on the heart;
So, at scent or sound or sight,
Severed souls by day and night
Tremble with the same delight -
Tremble, half the world apart.

By Robert Louis Stevenson.

"A Heart Divided"

He so spares himself

He so fears the coverings

The sky’s blue coverlet

And pillows of cloud

He is ill-clothed by his faith

He is so afraid of steps that go awry

And streets chipped in the ice

He is too tiny for winter

He so fears the cold

He is transparent in his mirror

He is so hazy he loses himself

Time rolls him under its waves

At moments his blood flows the wrong way

And his tears stain the linen

His hand gathers green trees

And nosegays of seaweed from the strand

His faith is a thorn bush

His hands bleed against his heart

His eyes have lost their glow

And his feet trail over the sea

Like the dead arms of devil-fish

He is lost in the universe

He stumbles against cities

Against himself and his own failings

Then pray that the Lord

Erase even the memory

Of this man from His mind.

A poem by Pierre Reverdy, a Cubist poet who later became a monk at the Solesmes Monastery (pictured above) in France.

"The Cloister on Kazbek"

High, o’er the family of tops, lead,
Kazbek, your royal dome’s spread,
And shines with timeless beams around.
Your cloister, hidden behind clouds,
Like some ark of the heaven-land,
Glides, vaguely seen over the mounds.

Oh, distant and desired strand!
There, saying ‘farewell’ to the gorges,
To lift self to the free abode –
Into the cell o’er clouds, gorgeous,
Into the neighborhood of God...

Aleksandr S. Pushkin

"Russian-American Romance" by A.A. Voznesenskiy

In my land and yours they do hit the hay
and sleep the whole night in a similar way.

There's the golden moon with a double shine.
It lightens your land and it lightens mine.

At the same low price, that is for free,
there's the sunrise for you and the sunset for me.

The wind is cool at the break of day,
it's neither your fault nor mine, anyway.

Behind your lies and behind my lies
there is pain and love for our motherlands.

I wish in your land and mine some day
we'd put all idiots out of the way.

"In the Valley of the Elwy"

I remember a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.

Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:
God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.

Gerard Manley Hopkins