[Sven2]

That is said beautifully:

'O plunge your hands in water,
   Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
   And wonder what you've missed.

Then the sentiment returns with the acceptance and quiet splendor.

It was late, late in the evening,
   The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
   And the deep river ran on.

Thank you, Miz.Lily!

[Water Lily]

In Praise of Shame   
by Lord Alfred Douglas 


Last night unto my bed bethought there came
Our lady of strange dreams, and from an urn
She poured live fire, so that mine eyes did burn
At the sight of it.  Anon the floating fame
Took many shapes, and one cried: "I am shame
That walks with Love, I am most wise to turn
Cold lips and limbs to fire; therefore discern
And see my loveliness, and praise my name."

And afterwords, in radiant garments dressed
With sound of flutes and laughing of glad lips,
A pomp of all the passions passed along
All the night through; till the white phantom ships
Of dawn sailed in. Whereat I said this song,
"Of all sweet passions Shame is the loveliest."

[Water Lily]

Two Loves   
by Lord Alfred Douglas 


I dreamed I stood upon a little hill,
And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed
Like a waste garden, flowering at its will
With buds and blossoms. There were pools that dreamed
Black and unruffled; there were white lilies
A few, and crocuses, and violets
Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries
Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets
Blue eyes of shy peryenche winked in the sun.
And there were curious flowers, before unknown,
Flowers that were stained with moonlight, or with shades
Of Nature's willful moods; and here a one
That had drunk in the transitory tone
Of one brief moment in a sunset; blades
Of grass that in an hundred springs had been
Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars,
And watered with the scented dew long cupped
In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen
Only God's glory, for never a sunrise mars
The luminous air of Heaven. Beyond, abrupt,
A grey stone wall. o'ergrown with velvet moss
Uprose; and gazing I stood long, all mazed
To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair.
And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across
The garden came a youth; one hand he raised
To shield him from the sun, his wind-tossed hair
Was twined with flowers, and in his hand he bore
A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes
Were clear as crystal, naked all was he,
White as the snow on pathless mountains frore,
Red were his lips as red wine-spilith that dyes
A marble floor, his brow chalcedony.
And he came near me, with his lips uncurled
And kind, and caught my hand and kissed my mouth,
And gave me grapes to eat, and said, 'Sweet friend,
Come I will show thee shadows of the world
And images of life. See from the South
Comes the pale pageant that hath never an end.'
And lo! within the garden of my dream
I saw two walking on a shining plain
Of golden light. The one did joyous seem
And fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain
Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids
And joyous love of comely girl and boy,
His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades
Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy;
And in his hand he held an ivory lute
With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair,
And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute,
And round his neck three chains of roses were.
But he that was his comrade walked aside;
He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes
Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide
With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs
That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white
Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red
Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight,
And yet again unclenched, and his head
Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death.
A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold
With the device of a great snake, whose breath
Was fiery flame: which when I did behold
I fell a-weeping, and I cried, 'Sweet youth,
Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove
These pleasent realms? I pray thee speak me sooth
What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.'
Then straight the first did turn himself to me
And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame,
But I am Love, and I was wont to be
Alone in this fair garden, till he came
Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'
Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the love that dare not speak its name.'

[Water Lily]

The Definition of Love   
by Andrew Marvell 


My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown
But vainly flapped its Tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixt,
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant Poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole World on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embraced.

Unless the giddy Heaven fall,
And Earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the World should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.

As lines so Loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite can never meet.
                                                   
Therefore the Love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the Mind,
And opposition of the Stars.

[Water Lily]

In Passing   
by Stanley Plumly 


On the Canadian side, we're standing far enough away
the Falls look like photography, the roar a radio.

In the real rain, so vertical it fuses with the air,
the boat below us is starting for the caves.

Everyone on deck is dressed in black, braced for weather
and crossing against the current of the river.

They seem lost in the gorge dimensions of the place,
then, in fog, in a moment, gone.

                                             In the Chekhov story,
the lovers live in a cloud, above the sheer witness of a valley.

They call it circumstance. They look up at the open wing
of the sky, or they look down into the future.

Death is a power like any other pull of the earth.
The people in the raingear with the cameras want to see it

from the inside, from behind, from the dark looking into the light.
They want to take its picture, give it size—

how much easier to get lost in the gradations of a large
and yellow leaf drifting its good-bye down one side of the gorge.

There is almost nothing that does not signal loneliness,
then loveliness, then something connecting all we will become.

All around us the luminous passage of the air,
the flat, wet gold of the leaves. I will never love you

more than at this moment, here in October,
the new rain rising slowly from the river.

[Water Lily]

Feed Me, Also, River God   
by Marianne Moore 


Lest by diminished vitality and abated
   vigilance, I become food for crocodiles—for that quicksand
   of gluttony which is legion. It is there close at hand—
      on either side
      of me. You remember the Israelites who said in pride

and stoutness of heart: "The bricks are fallen down, we will
   build with hewn stone, the sycamores are cut down, we will
   change to cedars"? I am not ambitious to dress stones, to
      renew forts, nor to match
      my value in action, against their ability to catch

up with arrested prosperity. I am not like
   them, indefatigable, but if you are a god, you will
   not discriminate against me. Yet—if you may fulfill
      none but prayers dressed
      as gifts in return for your gifts—disregard the request

[Sven2]

Miz.Lily, love your choices in poetry!

[Sven2]

Wife's Disaster Manual

When the forsaken city starts to burn,
after the men and children have fled,
stand still, silent as prey, and slowly turn

back. Behold the curse. Stay and mourn
the collapsing doorways, the unbroken bread
in the forsaken city starting to burn.

Don't flinch. Don't join in.
Resist the righteous scurry and instead
stand still, silent as prey. Slowly turn

your thoughts away from escape: the iron
gates unlatched, the responsibilities shed.
When the forsaken city starts to burn,

surrender to your calling, show concern
for those who remain. Come to a dead
standstill. Silent as prey, slowly turn

into something essential. Learn
the names of the fallen. Refuse to run ahead
when the forsaken city starts to burn.
Stand still and silent. Pray. Return.

--Deborah Paredez

[Sven2]

October

The day was hot, and entirely breathless, so
The remarkably quiet remarkably steady leaf fall
Seemed as if it had no cause at all.
The ticking sound of falling leaves was like
The ticking sound of gentle rainfall as
They gently fell on leaves already fallen,
Or as, when as they passed them in their falling,
Now and again it happened that one of them touched
One or another leaf as yet not falling,
Still clinging to the idea of being summer:
As if the leaves that were falling, but not the day,
Had read, and understood, the calendar.

--David Ferry

[Water Lily]

Another Song [Are they shadows that we see?]   
by Samuel Daniel 


    Are they shadows that we see?
    And can shadows pleasure give?
    Pleasures only shadows be
    Cast by bodies we conceive,
    And are made the things we deem,
    In those figures which they seem.
But these pleasures vanish fast,
Which by shadows are exprest:
    Pleasures are not, if they last,
    In their passing, is their best.
    Glory is most bright and gay
    In a flash, and so away.
Feed apace then greedy eyes
On the wonder you behold.
    Take it sudden as it flies
    Though you yake it not to hold:
    When your eyes have done their part,
    Thought must length it in the heart.

[Water Lily]

Nothing Twice   
by Wislawa Szymborska
translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak 


Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.

One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.

[Water Lily]

O Me! O Life!   
by Walt Whitman 


O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;   
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill'd with the foolish;   
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who  more faithless?)   
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew'd;   
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;         
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;   
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?   
   
                                                        Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;   
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

[Sven2]

Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love

Huang Po taught his students they were already
enlightened. I know of one student of Zen

who threw a translation of Huang Po
out of his apartment window, and the book,

like a block of wood, made it, on more than one
occasion, into an open trash can beside the curb.

This is not unlike the dimensions of love:
we feel the elephant ears of it, massage

the lion's paws of it, stroke the tiger's belly
of it, and are startled by the snort

steaming from the nostrils of the horse of it
that has run the field of it. We are illumined,

but we are unwilling to acknowledge its power;
so we remain unable to find what it is in ourselves

that is either falling in love or agape;
not understanding at all nor understanding

what is sublime. We may be able to pick through
the litter of the streets to discover a translation

of Huang Po's teaching among the trash.
We are the ones who threw it there.

We confuse seeing the wood with the true wood,
and lose each other halfway—

we see the wood of ourselves,
but miss the divine grain of the ordinary.

--Wally Swist

[Water Lily]

Love Not   
by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton 


  Love not, love not! ye hapless sons of clay! 
Hope's gayest wreaths are made of earthly flowers— 
Things that are made to fade and fall away 
Ere they have blossom'd for a few short hours. 
        Love not!
 
Love not! the thing ye love may change: 
The rosy lip may cease to smile on you, 
The kindly-beaming eye grow cold and strange, 
The heart still warmly beat, yet not be true. 
        Love not!
 
Love not! the thing you love may die, 
May perish from the gay and gladsome earth; 
The silent stars, the blue and smiling sky, 
Beam o'er its grave, as once upon its birth. 
        Love not!
 
Love not! oh warning vainly said 
In present hours as in the years gone by; 
Love flings a halo round the dear ones' head, 
Faultless, immortal, till they change or die, 
        Love not!

[Water Lily]

The More Loving One   
by W. H. Auden   
 


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.

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.