Re: Do You Have a Favorite Poem?
You have been used by someone else
But there is something good at bottom:
Your glassy hair casting spells,
Your weary eyes tired out in autumn.
The autumn age! Well, for my part,
I like it more than youth, I know it,
You're now much better to the heart
And fascination of a poet.
I never tell a lie at heart,
And to the call of ostentation
I'll say without hesitation:
Farewell to squabble, booze and that.
It's time to stop this rugged trick,
I've been so stubborn. That's the limit!
My heart has had a kind of drink
That sobers up the blood and spirit.
September knocks upon my pane
With willow branches showing crimson,
I have to be prepared again
For the arrival of the season.
I now put up with many things,
Without loss, or stress or bounds.
My Russian land has changed, it seems,
So are the houses 'nd burial grounds.
I look around, seeing through,
And here and there and everywhere
The only one for whom I care,
Is you, my friend, and sister, too.
You are the only one whom I,
Perfecting drawbacks of a sinner,
Will sing about roads, - oh my!-
The parting life of misdemeanour.
(Sergei Yesenin, 1923)
I blurred at once the map of humdrum,
by splashing colours like a potion;
I showed upon the dish of jelly
the slanted cheekbones of the ocean.
Upon the scales of metal fishes
I read the new lips’ attitude.
But could you
now
perform a nocturne
Just playing on a drainpipe flute?
(Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1913)
Within this restless, hurried, modern world
We took our hearts' full pleasure - You and I,
And now the white sails of our ship are furled,
And spent the lading of our argosy.
Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,
For very weeping is my gladness fled,
Sorrow hath paled my lip's vermilion,
And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.
But all this crowded life has been to thee
No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell
Of viols, or the music, of the sea
That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
(Oscar Wilde, 1881)
