“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.”

(From “Quatrains”; the poetry of Jalâluddîn Rumi translated by Coleman Barks)

I would not creep along the coast, but steer

Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.

From Middlemarch, by George Elliot

Lines Written In Early Spring

 

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

 

To her fair works did nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it griev’d my heart to think

What man has made of man.

 

Through primrose-tufts, in that sweet bower,

The periwinkle trail’d its wreathes;

And ’tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

 

The birds around me hopp’d and play’d:

Their thoughts I cannot measure,

But the least motion which they made,

It seem’d a thrill of pleasure.

 

The budding twigs spread out of their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

 

If these thoughts may not prevent,

If such be of my creed the plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

 

By William Wordsworth

Helas!

To drift with every passion till my soul

Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,

Is it for this that I have given away

Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?

Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll

Scrawled over on some boyish holiday

With idle songs for pipe and virelay,

Which do but mar the secret of the whole.

Surely there was a time I might have trod

The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance

Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:

Is that time dead? lo! With a little rod

I did but touch the honey of romance-

And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?

by Oscar Wilde

The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
For – put them side by side –
The one the other will contain
With ease – and You – beside –

The Brain is deeper that the sea –
For – hold them – Blue to Blue –
The one the other will absorb –
As sponges – buckets do –

The Brain is just the weight of God –
For – Heft them – pound for pound –
And they will differ – if they do –
As Syllable from Sound –

by Emily Dickinson

“But I have no belief,” the youth protested,

“So whom can I believe in?”

I replied

That I myself had never asked this question

But still would answer it.

“In ancient times

The savage, his intelligence distrusting,

In fear and awe to wooden idols bowed.

But you, young (wo/) man,

Today should place full trust in

Your human reason

And should stand uncowed.

(David Kugultinov, Kalmyk poet, Poems of..., Progress Publishers 1977)

Quicksand Years

Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,

Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock

And elude me,

only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess’d soul,

eludes not,

One’s-self must never give way- that is the final substance-

That out of all is sure,

Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally

Remains?

When shows break up what but One’s-Self is sure?

( Walt Whitman; From Leaves of Grass)

Handcuffs

 

Handcuffs

Have steel fangs

Whose bite is more painful

Than a whole battilion

Of fleas

 

Though the itch in my heart

Grows deeper and deeper

I cannot scratch.

 

How can I?

My wrists are manacled.

My mind

Is caged

My soul is shackled.

 

I can only grimace at the etheral cloud,

‘Have hope, brother,

despair is for the defeated.’

 

(Oswald Mtshali – from South African Freedom Poems; Heinemann, 1980)

 

Intelligence, Give me

 

Intelligence, give me

the exact name of things!

...I want, my word to be

the thing itself

created by my soul a second time.

So that those who do not know them

Can go to the things through me,

all those who have forgotten them

can go to the things through me,

all those who love them

can go to things through me...

Intelligence, give me

The exact name, and your name

And theirs and mine, for things!

 

(Juan Ramon Jimenez – selected poems Beacon Press, 1997)

 

Neither just nor beauteous

was life

before we came upon its stage

 

We pondered about

Its unattained justice

And beauty came into existence.

 

(A. Shamlou; The Collected Poems)

 

And I Always Thought

And I always thought: the very simplest words

Must be enough. When I say what things are like

Everyone’s heart must be torn to shreds.

That you’ll go down if you don’t stand up for yourself

Surely you see that.

(Bertolt Brecht, Poems 1913-1956)