Walpurgisnacht

I. Ein Druide und Chor der Druiden und des Volkes

Es lacht der Mai!
Der Wald ist frei
von Eis und Reifgehänge.
Der Schnee ist fort;
am grünen Ort
erschallen Lustgesänge.
Ein reiner Schnee
liegt auf der Höh';
doch eilen wir nach oben,
begeh'n den alten heil'gen Brauch,
Allvater dort zu loben.
Die Flamme lodre durch den Rauch!
Begeht den alten heil'gen Brauch.
Hinauf! Hinauf!
Allvater dort zu loben.
So wird das Herz erhoben.

II. Eine alte Frau aus dem Volk und Chor der Weiber aus dem Volk

Könnt ihr so verwegen handeln?
Wollt ihr denn zum Tode wandeln?
Kennet ihr nicht die Gesetze
unsrer strengen Überwinder?
Rings gestellt sind ihre Netze
auf die Heiden, auf die Sünder.
Ach, sie schlachten auf dem Walle
unsre Väter, unsre Kinder.
Und wir alle
nahen uns gewissem Falle,
auf des Lagers hohem Walle
schlachten sie uns unsre Kinder.
Ach, die strengen Überwinder!

III. Der Priester und Chor der Druiden

Wer Opfer heut'
zu bringen scheut,
verdient erst seine Bande!
Doch bleiben wir
im Buschrevier
am Tage noch im Stillen,
und Männer stellen wir zur Hut,
um eurer Sorge willen.
Dann aber lasst mit frischem Mut
uns unsre Pflicht erfüllen.
Hinauf! Hinauf!
Verteilt euch, wackre Männer, hier!

IV. Chor der Wächter der Druiden

Verteilt euch, wackre Männer, hier,
durch dieses ganze Waldrevier,
und wachet hier im Stillen,
wenn sie die Pflicht erfüllen.

V. Ein Wächter der Druiden und Chor der Wächter der Druiden

Diese dumpfen Pfaffenchristen,
lasst uns keck sie überlisten!
Mit dem Teufel, den sie fabeln,
wollen wir sie selbst erschrecken.
Kommt! Kommt mit Zacken und mit Gabeln,
und mit Glut und Klapperstöcken
lärmen wir bei nächt'ger Weile
durch die engen Felsenstrecken!
Kauz und Eule,
Heul' in unser Rundgeheule,
kommt! Kommt! Kommt!

VI. Chor der Wächter der Druiden und des Heidenvolkes

Kommt mit Zacken und mit Gabeln.
wie der Teufel, den sie fabeln,
und mit wilden Klapperstöcken
durch die engen Felsenstrecken!
Kauz und Eule,
heul in unser Rundgeheule.
Kommt! Kommt! Kommt!

VII. Der Priester und Chor der Druiden und des Heidenvolkes

So weit gebracht,
dass wir bei Nacht
Allvater heimlich singen!
Doch ist es Tag,
sobald man mag
ein reines Herz dir bringen.
Du kannst zwar heut'
und manche Zeit
dem Feinde viel erlauben.
Die Flamme reinigt sich vom Rauch:
So reinig' unsern Glauben!
Und raubt man uns den alten Brauch,
Dein Licht, wer will es rauben?

VIII. Ein christlicher Wächter und Chor der christlichen Wächter

Hilf, ach hilf mir, Kriegsgeselle!
Ach, es kommt die ganze Hölle!
Sieh', wie die verhexten Leiber
durch und durch von Flamme glühen!
Menschen-Wölf' und Drachen-Weiber,
die im Flug vorüberziehen!
Welch entsetzliches Getöse!
Lasst uns, lasst uns alle fliehen!
Oben flammt und saust der Böse.
Aus dem Boden
dampfet rings ein Höllenbroden.
Lasst uns flieh'n!

IX. Der Priester und allgemeiner Chor der Druiden und des Heidenvolkes

Die Flamme reinigt sich vom Rauch;
so reinig' unsern Glauben!
Und raubt man uns den alten Brauch,
dein Licht, wer kann es rauben?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Mai 1799)

Allerdings

Dem Physiker

"Ins Innre der Natur -"
O du Philister! -
"Dringt kein erschaffner Geist."
Mich und Geschwister
Mögt ihr an solches Wort
Nur nicht erinnern: Wir denken:
Ort für Ort Sind wir im Innern.
"Glückselig, wem sie nur
Die äußre Schale weist!"
Das hör ich sechzig Jahre wiederholen,
Ich fluche drauf, aber verstohlen;
Sage mir tausend tausend Male:
Alles gibt sie reichlich und gern;
Natur hat weder Kern Noch Schale,
Alles ist sie mit einem Male.
Dich prüfe du nur allermeist,
Ob du Kern oder Schale seist.

Lectures to Women on Physical Science

I.
PLACE. -- A small alcove with dark curtains.
The class consists of one member.
SUBJECT. -- Thomson’s Mirror Galvanometer.


The lamp-light falls on blackened walls,
And streams through narrow perforations,
The long beam trails o’er pasteboard scales,
With slow-decaying oscillations.
Flow, current, flow, set the quick light-spot flying,
Flow current, answer light-spot, flashing, quivering, dying,

O look! how queer! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, sharper growing
The gliding fire! with central wire,
The fine degrees distinctly showing.
Swing, magnet, swing, advancing and receding,
Swing magnet! Answer dearest, What's your final reading?

O love! you fail to read the scale
Correct to tenths of a division.
To mirror heaven those eyes were given,
And not for methods of precision.
Break contact, break, set the free light-spot flying;
Break contact, rest thee, magnet, swinging, creeping, dying.


II.
Professor Chrschtschonovitsch, Ph.D., "On the C. G. S. system of Units."
Remarks submitted to the Lecturer by a student.


Prim Doctor of Philosophy
Front academic Heidelberg!
Your sum of vital energy
Is not the millionth of an erg.
Your liveliest motion might be reckoned
At one-tenth metre in a second.
"The air," you said, in language fine,
Which scientific thought expresses,
"The air -- which with a megadyne,
On each square centimetre presses --
The air, and I may add the ocean,
Are nought but molecules in motion."

Atoms, you told me, were discrete,
Than you they could not be discreter,
Who know how many Millions meet
Within a cubic millimetre.
They clash together as they fly,
But you! -- you cannot tell me why.

And when in tuning my guitar
The interval would not come right,
"This string," you said, "is strained too far,
’Tis forty dynes, at least too tight!"
And then you told me, as I sang,
What overtones were in my clang.

You gabbled on, but every phrase
Was stiff with scientific shoddy,
The only song you deigned to praise
Was "Gin a body meet a body,"
"And even there," you said, "collision
Was not described with due precision."

"In the invariable plane,"
You told me, "lay the impulsive couple."
You seized my hand -- you gave me pain,
By torsion of a wrist so supple;
You told me what that wrench would do, --
"’Twould set me twisting round a screw."

Were every hair of every tress
(Which you, no doubt, imagine mine),
Drawn towards you with its breaking stress --
A stress, say, of a megadyne,
That tension I would sooner suffer
Than meet again with such a duffer!



James Clerk Maxwell

The Forest Reverie

'Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
To springs that ne'er did flow
That in the sun Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died--
Quenching the fires its ashes hide,--
Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
Sweet flowers, ere long,
The rare and radiant flowers of song!

Edgar Allan Poe

Several Questions Answered

What is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

The look of love alarms
Because 'tis fill'd with fire;
But the look of soft deceit
Shall Win the lover's hire.

Soft Deceit & Idleness,
These are Beauty's sweetest dress.

He who binds to himself a joy
Dot the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sunrise.


William Blake

Bored And Sad

It's boring and sad, and there's no one around
In times of my spirit's travail...
Desires!...What use is our vain and eternal desire?..
While years pass on by - all the best years!

To love...but love whom?.. a short love is vexing,
And permanent love's just a myth.
Perhaps look within? - The past's left no trace:
All trivial, joys and distress...

What good are the passions? For sooner or later
Their sweet sickness ends when reason speaks up;
And life, if surveyed with cold-blooded regard,-
Is stupid and empty - a joke...

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

I Sit and Think

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall never see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

To the Chief Musician upon Nabla: A Tyndallic Ode

I.

I come from fields of fractured ice,
Whose wounds are cured by squeezing,
Melting they cool, but in a trice,
Get warm again by freezing.
Here, in the frosty air, the sprays
With fernlike hoar-frost bristle,
There, liquid stars their watery rays
Shoot through the solid crystal.


II.

I come from empyrean fires --
From microscopic spaces,
Where molecules with fierce desires,
Shiver in hot embraces.
The atoms clash, the spectra flash,
Projected on the screen,
The double D, magnesian b,
And Thallium's living green.


III.

We place our eye where these dark rays
Unite in this dark focus,
Right on the source of power we gaze,
Without a screen to cloak us.
Then where the eye was placed at first,
We place a disc of platinum,
It glows, it puckers! will it burst?
How ever shall we flatten him!


IV.

This crystal tube the electric ray
Shows optically clean,
No dust or haze within, but stay!
All has not yet been seen.
What gleams are these of heavenly blue?
What air-drawn form appearing,
What mystic fish, that, ghostlike, through
The empty space is steering?


V.

I light this sympathetic flame,
My faintest wish that answers,
I sing, it sweetly sings the same,
It dances with the dancers.
I shout, I whistle, clap my hands,
And stamp upon the platform,
The flame responds to my commands,
In this form and in that form.


VI.

What means that thrilling, drilling scream,
Protect me! 'tis the siren:
Her heart is fire, her breath is steam,
Her larynx is of iron.
Sun! dart thy beams! in tepid streams,
Rise, viewless exhalations!
And lap me round, that no rude sound
May max my meditations.


VII.

Here let me pause. -- These transient facts,
These fugitive impressions,
Must be transformed by mental acts,
To permanent possessions.
Then summon up your grasp of mind,
Your fancy scientific,
Till sights and sounds with thought combined,
Become of truth prolific.


VIII.

Go to! prepare your mental bricks,
Fetch them from every quarter,
Firm on the sand your basement fix
With best sensation mortar.
The top shall rise to heaven on high --
Or such an elevation,
That the swift whirl with which we fly
Shall conquer gravitation.

James Clerk Maxwell

Vitam Impendere Amori

To Threaten Life for Love

Love is dead within your arms
Do you remember his encounter
He’s dead you restore the charms
He returns at your encounter

Another spring of springs gone past
I think of all its tenderness
Farewell season done at last
You’ll return as tenderly

****

In the evening light that’s faded
Where our several loves brush by
Your memory lies enchained
Far from our shades that die

O hands bound by memory
Burning like a funeral pyre
Where the last black Phoenix
Perfection comes to respire

Link by link the chain wears thin
Deriding us your memory
Flies ah hear it you who rail
I kneel again at your feet

****

You’ve not surprised my secret yet
Already the cortège moves on
But left to us is the regret
of there being no connivance none

The rose floats at the water’s edge
The maskers have passed by in crowds
It trembles in me like a bell
This heavy secret you ask now

****

Evening falls and in the garden
Women tell their histories
to Night that not without disdain
spills their dark hair’s mysteries

Little children little children
Your wings have flown away
But you rose that defend yourself
Throw your unrivalled scents away

For now’s the hour of petty theft
Of plumes of flowers and of tresses
Gather the fountain jets so free
Of whom the roses are mistresses

****

You descended through the water clear
I drowned my self so in your glance
The soldier passes she leans down
Turns and breaks away a branch

You float on nocturnal waves
The flame is my own heart reversed
Coloured as that comb’s tortoiseshell
The wave that bathes you mirrors well

****
O my abandoned youth is dead
Like a garland faded
Here the season comes again
Of suspicion and disdain

The landscape’s formed of canvasses
A false stream of blood flows down
And under the tree the stars glow fresh
The only passer by’s a clown

The glass in the frame has cracked
An air defined uncertainly
Hovers between sound and thought
Between ‘to be’ and memory

O my abandoned youth is dead
Like a garland faded
Here the season comes again
Of suspicion and disdain

Guillaume Apollinaire

Will you come along with me

I.
Will you come along with me,
In the fresh spring-tide,
My comforter to be
Through the world so wide?
Will you come and learn the ways
A student spends his days,
On the bonny, bonny braes
Of our ain burnside?


II.
For the lambs will soon be here,
In the fresh spring-tide;
As lambs come every year
On our ain burnside.
Poor things, they will not stay,
But we will keep the day
When first we saw them play
On our ain burnside.


III.
We will watch the budding trees
In the fresh spring-tide,
While the murmurs of the breeze
Through the branches glide.
Where the mavis builds her nest,
And finds both work and rest,
In the bush she loves the best,
On our ain burnside.


IV.
And the life we then shall lead
In the fresh spring-tide,
Will make thee mine indeed,
Though the world be wide.
No stranger’s blame or praise
Shall turn us from the ways
That brought us happy days
On our ain burnside.

James Clerk Maxwell

I Go Out On The Road Alone

Alone I set out on the road;
The flinty path is sparkling in the mist;
The night is still. The desert harks to God,
And star with star converses.

The vault is overwhelmed with solemn wonder
The earth in cobalt aura sleeps. . .
Why do I feel so pained and troubled?
What do I harbor: hope, regrets?

I see no hope in years to come,
Have no regrets for things gone by.
All that I seek is peace and freedom!
To lose myself and sleep!

But not the frozen slumber of the grave...
I'd like eternal sleep to leave
My life force dozing in my breast
Gently with my breath to rise and fall;

By night and day, my hearing would be soothed
By voices sweet, singing to me of love.
And over me, forever green,
A dark oak tree would bend and rustle.

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Edgar Allan Poe

From Demon

Sailless and without a rudder,
On the ocean of the air--
Float the choirs of stars harmonious,
'Mid the mists eternal there;
Fleecy flocks of clouds elusive
Drift across immensity,
Leaving ne'er a track behind them,
Following their destiny.
Hour of parting, hour of meeting
They know not,--nor grief, nor rest--
Theirs no longing for the future,
Theirs no sorrow for the past.
By thy day of anguish broken,
Think of them and calm thy woe--
Be indifferent as they are
To the pangs of earth below!

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

Advice: to himself

Sad Catullus, stop playing the fool,
and let what you know leads you to ruin, end.
Once, bright days shone for you,
when you came often drawn to the girl
loved as no other will be loved by you.
Then there were many pleasures with her,
that you wished, and the girl not unwilling,
truly the bright days shone for you.
And now she no longer wants you: and you
weak man, be unwilling to chase what flees,
or live in misery: be strong-minded, stand firm.
Goodbye girl, now Catullus is firm,
he doesn’t search for you, won’t ask unwillingly.
But you’ll grieve, when nobody asks.
Woe to you, wicked girl, what life’s left for you?
Who’ll submit to you now? Who’ll see your beauty?
Who now will you love? Whose will they say you’ll be?
Who will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite?
But you, Catullus, be resolved to be firm.

Gaius Valerius Catullus

The Padlock

I triumphed, love's victorious power
Prevailed, and near approached the hour
Which should have crowned our mutual flame,
Just then your tyrant husband came.
That hoary Jailer was too hard,
To love he all access has barred,
And all our wishes to defeat,
Secures the key of pleasure's seat;
For such strange matters to account,
Our tale to ancient days should mount;
Ceres must to you sure be known,
Ceres one daughter had alone,
Who much resembled you in face,
Beauteous, adorned with every grace,
To the soft passion much inclined,
And guided by a Cupid blind.
Hymen, a god as blind as he,
Treated him as he treated thee;
Pluto, the rich and old, in hell
Made her his wife, and forced to dwell;
But she the jealous miser scorned,
And Pluto, though a god, was horned;
Pirithous, his rival bright,
Young, handsome, generous, and polite,
Found means to get to hell ere dead,
And clapped huge horns upon his head.
This as a fable you'll deride,
But love a man to hell may guide;
In hell, as here, by some strange spite,
Intrigues are always brought to light;
In a hot hole a spy concealed,
Saw all, and all he saw revealed;
And added, that the royal dame,
With half the damned had done the same.
The horned god on this report
Convokes at his infernal court,
Each odious, black, and cursed soul,
Sainted below for actions foul,
Each cuckold's soul, who during life
Did all he could to plague his wife.
Then thus declared a Florentine,
'Most mighty monarch, I'd opine
For death, for once a wife is dead,
She can't defile the marriage bed;
But ah, sir, an immortal wife
Can never be deprived of life;
A padlock, therefore, I'd invent,
Which should such accidents prevent;
She must be virtuous, of course,
When under the restraint of force;
Not to be come at by her elf,
You're sure to have her to yourself;
Would I had thought before I died,
Such a convenience to provide.'
This sage advice a loud applause
From all the damned assembly draws;
And straight by order of the state,
Was registered on brass by fate.
That moment in the shades below,
They anvils beat, and bellows blow;
Tisiphone the blacksmith's trade
Well understood, the locks she made.
Proserpina, from Pluto's hand
Receiving, wore it by command.
Sometimes the hardest hearts relent,
Even Pluto's self some pity felt,
When spouse's virtue he made fast,
And said, 'you'll now perforce be chaste.'
This lock which hell could frame alone,
Soon to the human race was known;
In Venice, Rome, and all about it,
No gentleman or cit's without it;
'Tis always thought a method sure,
All female honor to secure.
There husbands, though some sneerers mock,
Keep virtue safe and under lock.
But now to bring the matter home,
Your spouse, you know, lived long at Rome;
With bad men few infection 'scape,
He has learned the Roman modes to ape.
But all his jealous care is vain,
Love always knows his ends to gain;
That god will sure espouse our cause,
He still protects who keeps his laws;
For you have given me your heart,
And can't refuse me any part.

Voltaire

Tune, Il Segreto pro Esser Felice

Es gibt einige Leute, die sagen,
Sie haben einen Weg gefunden,
Um gesund zu sein und reich und klug -
"Lassen Sie Ihre Gedanken werden aber nur wenige,
Machen Sie es wie andere Leute tun,
Und nie überrascht werden.
Lassen Sie Ihr Motto-Folgen Sie der Mode,
Aber lassen Sie andere Menschen allein;
Haben sie nicht lieben, noch hassen sie, noch Pflege für ihr Schicksal,
Aber halten Sie Ausschau nach Belieben.
Und was wäre die Welt kann freien Lauf,
Dennoch spielen bei der Fang Fang kann;
Sie können nur iss dein Abendessen in ruhiger,
Und wie ein vernünftiger Mensch zu leben. "


II.

"Twere eine schöne Sache,
So wie ein König sitzen,
Und die Welt drehte sich reden,
Wenn es nicht so, dass wir
Wie alle Dinge, die wir sehen,
Sind an beweglichen Boden stehend.
Während wir von unserer ruhigen Genüsse rühmen,
Die Mittel des Genusses sind geflogen,
Sowohl unsere Freuden und Schmerzen, bis es nichts bleibt,
Aber die ruhige Ruhe ein Stein.
Die Welt kann ganz verrückt,
Und das Leben sein kann vergebliche Mühe;
Aber ich würde lieber dumm als faul,
Und würde nicht aufhören Leben für seine Schmerzen.


III.

In der Natur ich gelesen
Ein ganz anderes Glaubensbekenntnis,
Es lebt alles in der Ruhe;
Jeder fühlt die gleiche Kraft,
Wie er sich bewegt in ihrem Verlauf,
Und das alles von einem Segen werden gesegnet.
Das Ende, dass wir für die Live ist ledig,
Aber wir arbeiten also nicht alleine,
Für zusammen fühlen wir uns wie von Rad innerhalb Rad,
Wir sind durch eine Kraft nicht unsere eigenen geholfen
Also haben wir fliehen nicht die Welt und ihre Gefahren,
Denn wer hat es weise ist,
Er weiß, wir sind Pilger und Fremdlinge,
Und er wird erleuchten die Augen.

James Clerk Maxwell

The Temple of Friendship

Sacred to peace, within a wood's recess,
A blest retreat, where courtiers never press,
A temple stands, where art did never try
With pompous wonders to enchant the eye;
There are no dazzling ornaments, nor vain,
But truth, simplicity, and nature reign:
The virtuous Gauls raised erst the noble shrine,
And sacred vowed to Friendship's power divine.
Mistaken mortals who believed their race,
Would never cease to crowd to such a place!
Orestes' name, and Pylades' appear,
Wrote on the front, names still to Friendship dear:
Pirithous' medal of uncommon size,
Those of soft Nisus and Achates wise.
All these are heroes, and as friends renowned,
These names are great, but still in fable found;
The power to this remote retreat retired,
Nor Tripod boasts, nor priests with truth inspired;
She miracles but seldom can effect,
No popish saint e'er met with such neglect.
Still in her presence faithful truth attends,
And to the goddess needful succor lends:
Truth's every ready to enlighten all,
But few on truth for kind assistance call.
In vain she waits for votaries at her shrine,
None come, though all at wanting her repine;
Her hand holds forth the register exact,
Of every generous, every friendly act;
Favors in which esteem with friendship vied,
Received not meanly, not conferred with pride:
Such favors as those who confer forget,
And who receive, declare without regret.
This history of the virtues of mankind,
Within a narrow compass is confined;
In Gothic characters all these are traced
Upon two sheets, by time almost defaced.
By what strange frenzy is mankind possessed,
Friendship is banished now from every breast;
Yet all usurp of Friend the sacred name,
And vilest hypocrites bring in their claim.
All that they're faithful to her laws maintain,
And even her enemies her rights profane:
In regions subject to the pope's command,
Thus we see beads oft in an atheist's hand.
'Tis said the goddess, each pretended friend,
Once in her presence summoned to attend;
She fixed the day on which they should be there,
A prize proposing for each faithful pair;
Who with a tenderness like hers replete,
Amongst true friends might justly claim a seat;
Then quickly came allured by such a prize,
The French who novelty still idolize:
A multitude before the temple came,
And first, two courtly friends preferred their claim,
By interest joined, thy walked still hand in hand,
And of their union Friendship thought the band:
Post-haste a courier came and made report,
That there was then a vacancy at court;
Away each friend polite that moment flies,
Forsakes at once the temple and the prize;
Thus in a moment friends are turned to foes,
Each swears his rival warmly to oppose:
Four devotees next issue from the throng,
Poring on prayer-books as they pass along;
Their charity to mankind overflows,
And with religious zeal their bosom glows.
A pampered prelate one with fat o'ergrown,
Triple-chinned, much to apoplexy prone;
The swine quite gorged with tithes, and overfed,
At length by indigestion's force lies dead:
Quick the confessor clears the sinner's score,
His soles are greased, his body sprinkled o'er,
And spruced up by the curate of the place,
To go his heavenly journey with good grace;
His three friends o'er him merrily say prayers,
His benefice alone excites their cares:
Devoutly rivals grown, each still pretends
Attachment most sincere to both his friends;
Yet all in making interest at the court,
Their brothers downright Jansenists report.
Two youths of fashion next came arm in arm,
Their eyes and hearts, their mistress letters charm:
These as they passed along they read aloud,
And both displayed their persons to the crowd;
Some favorite airs they sing, while they advance
Up to the altar, just as to a dance:
They fight about some trifle, one is slain,
And Friendship's altar hence receives a stain;
The less mad of the two with conquest crowned,
Left his dear friend expiring on the ground.
Next Lisis, with her much loved Chloe came,
From infancy their pleasures were the same;
Alike their humor, and alike their age,
Those trifles which the female heart engage;
Lisis was prone to Chloe to impart,
They spoke the overflowings of the heart;
At last one lover touched both female friends,
And strange to tell! here all their Friendship ends;
Lisis and Chloe Friendship's shrine forsake,
And the high road to Hatred's temple take.
The beauteous Zara shone forth in her turn,
With eyes that languish, whilst our hearts they burn:
'What languor,' said she, 'reigns in this abode!
By that sad goddess, say what joy's bestowed?
Here dismal melancholy dwells alone,
For love's soft joys are ever here unknown.'
Leaving the place, crowds followed her behind,
And struck with envy, twenty beauties pined:
Where next my Zara went, is known to none,
And Friendship's glorious prize could not be won:
The goddess everywhere so much admired;
So little known, and yet by all admired;
With cold upon her sacred altar froze--
Hence hapless mortals, hence derive your woes.

Voltaire

Recollections of a Dreamland

Rouse ye! torpid daylight-dreamers, cast your carking cares away!
As calm air to troubled water, so my night is to your day;
All the dreary day you labour, groping after common sense,
And your eyes ye will not open on the night's magnificence.
Ye would scow were I to tell you how a guiding radiance gleams
On the outer world of action from my inner world of dreams.

When, with mind released from study, late I lay note down to sleep,
From the midst of facts and figures, into boundless space I leap;
For the inner world grows wider as the outer disappears,
And the soul, retiring inward, finds itself beyond the spheres.
Then, to this unbroken sameness, some fantastic dream succeeds,
Vague emotions rise and ripen into thoughts and words and deeds.
Old impressions, long forgotten, range themselves in Time and Space,
Till I recollect the features of some once familiar place.
Then from valley into valley in my dreaming course I roam,
Till the wanderings of my fancy end, where they began, at home.
Calm it lies in morning twilight, while each streamlet far and wide
Still retains its hazy mantle, borrowed from the mountain's side;
Every knoll is now an island every wooded bank a shore,
To the lake of quiet vapour that has spread the valley o’er.
Sheep are couched on every hillock, waiting till the morning dawns,
Hares are on their early rambles, limping o’er the dewy lawns.
All within the house is silent, darkened all the chambers seem,
As with noiseless step I enter, gliding onwards in my dream.

What! has Time run out his cycle, do the years return again?
Are there treasure-caves in Dreamland where departed days remain?
I have leapt the bars of distance—left the life that late I led—
I remember years and labours as a tale that I have read;
Yet my heart is hot within me, for I feel the gentle power
Of the spirits that still love me, waiting for this sacred hour.
Yes,—I know the forms that meet me are but phantoms of the brain,
For they walk in mortal bodies, and they have not ceased from pain.
Oh! those signs of human weakness, left behind for ever now,
Dearer far to me than glories round a fancied seraph's brow.
Oh! the old familiar voices ! Oh! the patient waiting eyes!
Let me live with them in dreamland, while the world in slumber lies!
For by bonds of sacred honour will they guard my soul in sleep
From the spells of aimless fancies, that around my senses creep.
They will link the past and present into one continuous life,
While I feel their hope, their patience, nerve me for the daily strife.
For it is not all a fancy that our lives and theirs are one,
And we know that all we see is but an endless work begun.
Part is left in Nature's keeping, part is entered into rest,
Part remains to grow and ripen, hidden in some living breast.
What is ours we know not, either when we wake or when we sleep,
But we know that Love and Honour, day and night, are ours to keep.
What though Dreams be wandering fancies, by some lawless force entwined,
Empty bubbles, floating upwards through the current of the mind?
There are powers and thoughts within us, that we know not, till they rise
Through the stream of conscious action from where Self in secret lies.
But when Will and Sense are silent, by the thoughts that come and go,
We may trace the rocks and eddies in the hidden depths below.

Let me dream my dream till morning; let my mind run slow and clear,
Free from all the world's distraction, feeling that the Dead are near,
Let me wake, and see my duty lie before me straight and plain.
Let me rise refreshed, and ready to begin my work again.

James Clerk Maxwell

There is

this ship which has taken my beloved back again
There are six Zeppelin sausages in the sky and with night
coming on it makes a man think of the maggots from which the
stars might some day be reborn
There is this enemy submarine slipping up beneath my love
There are one thousand young pinetrees splintered by the
bursting of the same shells falling around me now
There is this infantryman walking by completely blinded by
poison gas
There is the obvious fact that all that is happening here was
hatched a long time ago in the intestinal trenches of Nietzche
Goethe and the metaphysicians of the town of Cologne
There is the obvious fact that I'm dying over a letter which
has thus far been delayed
There are in my wallet various photos of my beloved
There are prisoners marching past with anxious faces
There is this artillery battery with its faithful servants
hurrying among the guns
There is the postmaster arriving at a trot on the road beneath
the single tree in silhouette
There is according to rumor a spy who infiltrates somewhere
near here invisible as the horizon as the horizon-blue French
uniform he has assumed for offensive purposes and in which he
is now most effectively camouflaged
There is erect as any lily the bosom of my beloved
There is this captain anxiously awaiting the latest radio
dispatch to reach us via transatlantic cable
There are at midnight these details of soldiers sawing planks
for coffins
There are women somewhere in Mexico pleading with wild cries
for more indian corn and maize
There is this Gulf Stream which is so warm and beneficial
There is this cemetery covered with crosses only five
kilometers away
There are all these crosses everywhere this way that way
There are paradisial persimmons growing on cactus-trees in
Algeria
There are the long hands of my love
There is this inkwell which I've made from a 150 mm shell I
saved from shooting
There is my calvary saddle left out in the rain
There are all these rivers blasted off their courses which will
never go back to their banks
There is the god of Love who leads me on so sweetly
There is this German prisoner carrying his machine-gun across
his shoulders
There are men on earth who've never fought in the war
There are Hindus here who look with astonishment on the
occidental style of campaign
They meditate gravely upon those who've left this place
wondering whether they'll ever see them again
Knowing as they do what great progress we've made during this
particular war in the art of invisibility.

Guillaume Apollinaire

O! Where Are You Going?

O! What are you doing,
And where are you going?
Your ponies need shoeing!
The River is flowing!
O! Tra-la-la-lally
Here down in the valley!

O! What are you seeking,
And where are you making?
The faggots are reeking!
The bannocks are baking!
O! Tril-lil-lil-lolly
The valley is jolly
Ha ha!

O! Where are you going,
With beards all a-wagging?
No knowing, no knowing
What brings Mister Baggins,
And Balin and Dwalin
Down into the valley
In June
Ha ha!

O! Will you be staying,
Or will you be flying?
Your ponies are straying!
The daylight is dying!
To fly would be folly,
To stay would be jolly!
And listen and hark
Till the end of the dark
To our tune.
Ha ha!

The dragon is withered,
His bones are now crumbled!
His armor is shivered,
His splendour is humbled!
Though sword shall be rusted
And throne and crown perish,
With strength that men trusted
And wealth that they cherish,
Here grass is still growing,
And leaves are yet swinging!
The white water is flowing,
And elves are yet singing!
Come! Tra-la-la-lally!
Come back to the valley!

The stars are far brighter
Than gems without measure,
The moon is far whiter
Than silver in treasure:
The fire is more shining
On hearth in the gloaming
Than gold won by mining,
So why so a-roaming?
O! Tra-la-la-lally!
Come back to the Valley!

O! Where are you going?
So late in returning?
The water is flowing!
The stars are all burning!
O! Whither so laden,
So sad and so dreary?
Here elf and elf-maiden
Now welcome the weary!
With tra-la-la-lally
Come back to the Valley,
Tra-la-la-lally
Fa-la-la-lally
Ha ha!

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Cats Cradle Song, by a Babe in Knots

Peter the Repeater,
Platted round a platter
Slips of slivered paper,
Basting them with batter.

Flype ’em, slit ’em, twist ’em,
Lop-looped laps of paper;
Setting out the system
By the bones of Neper.

Clear your coil of kinkings
Into perfect plaiting,
Locking loops and linkings
Interpenetrating.

Why should a man benighted,
Beduped, befooled, besotted,
Call knotful knittings plighted,
Not knotty but beknotted?

It’s monstrous, horrid, shocking,
Beyond the power of thinking,
Not to know, interlocking
Is no mere form of linking.

But little Jacky Horner
Will teach you what is proper,
So pitch him, in his corner,
Your silver and your copper.

James Clerk Maxwell

The Invitation to the Voyage

My sister, my child
imagine, exiled,
The sweetness, of being there, we two!
To live and to sigh,
to love and to die,
In the land that mirrors you!
The misted haze
of its clouded days
Has the same charm to my mind,
as mysterious,
as your traiterous
Eyes, behind glittering blinds.


There everything’s order and beauty,
calm, voluptuousness, and luxury.


The surface gleams
are polished it seems,
Through the years, to grace our room.
The rarest flowers
mix, with fragrant showers,
The vague, amber perfume.
The dark, painted halls,
the deep mirrored walls,
With Eastern splendour hung,
all secretly speak,
To the soul, its discrete,
Sweet, native tongue.

There, everything’s order and beauty,
calm, voluptuousness and luxury.

See, down the canals,
the sleeping vessels,
Those nomads, their white sails furled:
Now, to accomplish
your every wish,
They come from the ends of the world.
- The deep sunsets
surround the west,
The canals, the city, entire,
with blue-violet and gold;
And the Earth grows cold
In an incandescent fire.

There, everything’s order and beauty,
calm, voluptuousness and luxury.

Charles Baudelaire

A Problem in Dynamics

An inextensible heavy chain
Lies on a smooth horizontal plane,
An impulsive force is applied at A,
Required the initial motion of K.

Let ds be the infinitesimal link,
Of which for the present we’ve only to think;
Let T be the tension, and T + dT
The same for the end that is nearest to B.
Let a be put, by a common convention,
For the angle at M ’twixt OX and the tension;
Let Vt and Vn be ds’s velocities,
Of which Vt along and Vn across it is;
Then Vn/Vt the tangent will equal,
Of the angle of starting worked out in the sequel.

In working the problem the first thing of course is
To equate the impressed and effectual forces.
K is tugged by two tensions, whose difference dT
Must equal the element's mass into Vt.
Vn must be due to the force perpendicular
To ds’s direction, which shows the particular
Advantage of using da to serve at your
Pleasure to estimate ds’s curvature.
For Vn into mass of a unit of chain
Must equal the curvature into the strain.

Thus managing cause and effect to discriminate,
The student must fruitlessly try to eliminate,
And painfully learn, that in order to do it, he
Must find the Equation of Continuity.
The reason is this, that the tough little element,
Which the force of impulsion to beat to a jelly meant,
Was endowed with a property incomprehensible,
And was "given," in the language of Shop, "inexten-sible."
It therefore with such pertinacity odd defied
The force which the length of the chain should have modified,
That its stubborn example may possibly yet recall
These overgrown rhymes to their prosody metrical.
The condition is got by resolving again,
According to axes assumed in the plane.
If then you reduce to the tangent and normal,
You will find the equation more neat tho’ less formal.
The condition thus found after these preparations,
When duly combined with the former equations,
Will give you another, in which differentials
(When the chain forms a circle), become in essentials
No harder than those that we easily solve
In the time a T totum would take to revolve.

Now joyfully leaving ds to itself, a-
Ttend to the values of T and of a.
The chain undergoes a distorting convulsion,
Produced first at A by the force of impulsion.
In magnitude R, in direction tangential,
Equating this R to the form exponential,
Obtained for the tension when a is zero,
It will measure the tug, such a tug as the "hero
Plume-waving" experienced, tied to the chariot.
But when dragged by the heels his grim head could not carry aught,
So give a its due at the end of the chain,
And the tension ought there to be zero again.
From these two conditions we get three equations,
Which serve to determine the proper relations
Between the first impulse and each coefficient
In the form for the tension, and this is sufficient
To work out the problem, and then, if you choose,
You may turn it and twist it the Dons to amuse.

James Clerk Maxwell

Elevation

Above the ponds, beyond the valleys,
The woods, the mountains, the clouds, the seas,
Farther than the sun, the distant breeze,
The spheres that wilt to infinity

My spirit, you move with agility
And, like a good swimmer who swoons in the wave
You groove the depths immensity gave,
The inexpressible and male ecstasy.

From this miasma of waste,
You will be purified in superior air
And drink a pure and divine liqueur,
A clear fire to replace the limpid space

Behind this boredom and fatigue, this vast chagrin
Whose weight moves the mists of existence,
Happy is he who vigorously fans the senses
Toward serene and luminous fields—wincing!

The one whose thoughts are like skylarks taken wing
Across the heavens mornings in full flight
—Who hovers over life, understanding without effort
The language of flowers and mute things.

Charles Baudelaire
Translated by William A. Sigler

A Student's Evening Hymn

I.
Now no more the slanting rays
With the mountain summits dally,
Now no more in crimson blaze
Evening’s fleecy cloudless rally,
Soon shall Night front off the valley
Sweep that bright yet earthly haze,
And the stars most musically
Move in endless rounds of praise.

II.
While the world is growing dim,
And the Sun is slow descending
Past the far horizon’s rim,
Earth's low sky to heaven extending,
Let my feeble earth-notes, blending
With the songs of cherubim,
Through the same expanse ascending,
Thus renew my evening hymn.

III.
Thou that fill’st our waiting eyes
With the food of contemplation,
Setting in thy darkened skies
Signs of infinite creation,
Grant to nightly meditation
What the toilsome day denies—
Teach me in this earthly station
Heavenly Truth to realise.

IV.
Give me wisdom so to use
These brief hours of thoughtful leisure,
That I may no instant lose
In mere meditative pleasure,
But with strictest justice measure
All the ends my life pursues,
Lies to crush and truths to treasure,
Wrong to shun and Right to choose.

V.
Then, when unexpected Sleep,
O’er my long-closed eyelids stealing,
Opens up that lower deep
Where Existence has no feeling,
May sweet Calm, my languor healing,
Lend note strength at dawn to reap
All that Shadows, world-concealing,
For the bold enquirer keep.

VI.
Through the creatures Thou hast made
Show the brightness of Thy glory,
Be eternal Truth displayed
In their substance transitory,
Till green Earth and Ocean hoary,
Massy rock and tender blade
Tell the same unending story—
"We are Truth in Form arrayed."

VII.
When to study I retire,
And from books of ancient sages
Glean fresh sparks of buried fire
Lurking in their ample pages—
While the task my mind engages
Let old words new truths inspire-—
Truths that to all after-ages
Prompt the Thoughts that never tire.

VIII.
Yet if, led by shadows fair
I have uttered words of folly,
Let the kind absorbing air
Stifle every sound unholy.
So when Saints with Angels lowly
Join in heaven’s unceasing prayer,
Mine as certainly, though slowly,
May ascend and mingle there.

IX.
Teach me so Thy works to read
That my faith,—new strength accruing,—
May from world to world proceed,
Wisdom's fruitful search pursuing;
Till, thy truth my mind imbuing,
I proclaim the Eternal Creed,
Oft the glorious theme renewing
God our Lord is God indeed.

X.
Give me love aright to trace
Thine to everything created,
Preaching to a ransomed race
By Thy mercy renovated,
Till with all thy fulness sated
I behold thee face to face
And with Ardour unabated
Sing the glories of thy grace.

James Clerk Maxwell