Mountain Pines by Robinson Jeffers

In scornful upright loneliness they stand, 

Counting themselves no kin of anything 

Whether of earth or sky. Their gnarled roots cling 

Like wasted fingers of a clutching hand 

In the grim rock. A silent spectral band 

They watch the old sky, but hold no communing 

With aught. Only, when some lone eagle's wing 

Flaps past above their grey and desolate land, 

Or when the wind pants up a rough-hewn glen, 

Bending them down as with an age of thought, 

Or when, 'mid flying clouds that can not dull 

Her constant light, the moon shines silver, then 

They find a soul, and their dim moan is wrought 

Into a singing sad and beautiful.

Ovid Speaks by Ovid

On this day, January 2 in the year 17 A. D. Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) lost and exiled along the Black Sea, wrote one of the finest poems 'Ovid speaks' -


A hundred curses on this place of banishment,
back door to nowhere by the Black Sea.
The warmest day here would freeze the legs off a heron!

It’s a far cry from the cosiness and comforts of Rome.
I’m going to seed here among barbarians
with as much learning and table manners between them as a flea.

Oh for a drop of that divine elixir,
fruit of the vine that gives sparkle to words!
For liquor here there’s nothing but ice in the bottom of a jug.

Oh for the sunny slopes of those homeland vines again,
olive groves, wooded hills.
There I could live off consonants and vowels.

Scintillating Rome! Always in my thoughts,
where I juggled with life and death. There I gave colour
to humility, boldness to the sweetest sounds.


My brain will snap before I understand this Black Sea blather,
it strikes the ears betimes as the howl of wolves,
other times the wrenching of ice from itself.

Augustus it was who betrayed me and blackened my name,
but harsh though his judgement, his punishment, might seem
I swear he will not have victory over my words.

No king, no regime, however powerful
will tyrannise my poetry now or in times to come.
From age to age my poems will surge. They will speak

To rising generations in the fullness of time;
freemen who couldn’t care less about Caesar and his ilk.
This is our age, let him know it, the age of Ovid, Virgil and Horace.

But Augustus is too self-important to see
that it is by the grace of poets that he lives and breathes,
and so will it always be; it is we who fashion the ageless legislation

Of the free word, the honest word that bows not to tyranny,
the glowing commandments of poetry forever guarded by the Muse.
Forgive this hubris, this pride that has brimmed over,

Stature, name and honour have been taken from me
I’m rootless, a beggar. Thrown to the winds
the Word my only home.

Nothing to do but brandish my quill.

In a station of Metro by Ezra Pound

The apparition
of these faces  
in the crowd: Petals  
on a wet, black  
bough.

Become Becoming by Li-Young Lee

Wait for evening.
Then you’ll be alone.

Wait for the playground to empty.
Then call out those companions from childhood:

The one who closed his eyes
and pretended to be invisible.
The one to whom you told every secret.
The one who made a world of any hiding place.

And don’t forget the one who listened in silence
while you wondered out lout:

Is the universe an empty mirror? A flowering tree?
Is the universe the sleep of a woman?

Wait for the sky’s last blue
(the color of your homesickness).
Then you’ll know the answer.

Wait for the air’s first gold (that color of Amen).
Then you’ll spy the wind’ barefoot steps.

Then you’ll recall that story beginning
with a child who strays in the woods.

The search for him goes on in the growing
shadow of the clock.

And the face behind the clock’s face
is not his father’s face.

And the hands behind the clock’s hands
are not his mother’s hands.

All of Time began when you first answered
to the names your mother and father gave you.

Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.
Then, you can trade places with the wind.

Then you’ll remember your life
as a book of candles,
each page read by the light of its own burning.

from Oracles for Youth by Caroline Gilman

 

Directions 

 

Let some one hold the book, and ask one of the questions. The answers being all numbered, the girl or boy who is questioned chooses a number, and the person who holds the book reads the answer to which that number belongs, aloud. 

For instance: 

 

Question. What is your character? 

Answer. I choose No. 3 

 

Questioner reads aloud: 

 

No. 3. Gentle tempered, sweet and kind, 

To no angry word inclined. 

 

What Will Be Your Destiny? 

FORTY-THREE ANSWERS 

 

1. Just as you think you've gained great wealth, 

Something will make you lose your health. 

 

2. Your hair will be white in a single night, 

From having an unexpected fright. 

 

3. You will enjoy a sweet old age, 

So kind and pure, so long and sage. 

 

4. You will fall down at eighty-four, 

And break a dozen ribs or more. 

 

5. You will finish your days with God for your friend: 

Who would not be glad of so blissful an end? 

 

6. You will be ever absorbed in books, 

And never give a thought to looks. 

 

7. In peace and plenty you will lie, 

And in the arms of friendship die. 

 

8. You will have cause for many tears, 

To cloud the beauty of your years. 

 

9. Ah, is it so? when you are old, 

you will be very poor, I'm told. 

 

10. In the night-time you will weep, 

And your painful vigils keep. 

 

11. Nothing dreadful, nothing sad, 

Comes to you; for this I'm glad. 

 

12. You always will have an excellent table, 

And full of horses will keep your stable. 

 

13. The Sibyl says you'll die in Rome, 

Which for a time will be your home. 

 

14. Your plenty and peace 

Will never cease. 

 

15. You will suddenly die in the crowded street, 

If the age of a hundred years you meet. 

 

16. You will ride in your carriage-and-four, 

And be very kind to the suffering poor. 

 

17. Never murmur, never care, 

You will be a millionaire. 

 

18. Sick at heart, and sick at head, 

You will wish that you were dead. 

 

19. As the might of God you see, 

Religious you will ever be. 

 

20. To California you will go 

To get the shining gold, you know. 

 

21. Brightest pleasures you will see, 

And happiness your portion be. 

 

22. Love will gild your joyous life, 

Free from pain and care and strife. 

 

23. Don't despond, and do not care, 

You will be a nabob's heir. 

 

24. To California you will be sent, 

But will return as poor as you went. 

 

25. A missionary you will be, 

Far o'er the billows of the sea. 

 

26. It is your destiny to rule, 

And you will keep a village school. 

 

27. Ball and parties you will find 

Alone are suited to your mind. 

 

28. Through the vista of the years 

I see you mourning and in tears. 

 

29. A country life at length you'll lead, 

Rejoicing in your ambling steed. 

 

30. Fair in the wild and prairied west, 

Your tired frame at length you'll rest. 

 

31. A public singer's place you'll take, 

And a sensation you will make. 

 

32. You'll only love your native home, 

From which you will not care to roam. 

 

33. A great pianist, you will gain 

Bright laurels from the admiring train. 

 

34. A kitchen garden you will keep, 

And sell fresh vegetables cheap. 

 

35. To higher virtues you will rise, 

Until you're ready for the skies. 

 

36. To the city's crowded street 

You'll direct your willing feet. 

 

37. In digging in a worn-out field 

You'll see a box, securely sealed, 

Half buried in the ground; 

And therein jewels bright, and gold, 

And bank-notes, in large bundles rolled, 

Will joyfully be found. 

 

38. A music teacher you will be, 

This is your tuneful destiny. 

 

39. You will travel in your prime, 

And view the works of art sublime. 

 

40. You will journey the whole world o'er, 

And gather relics from every shore. 

 

41. The most of your time will be passed on the sea, 

But wherever you are, you will happy be. 

 

42. On an island will you live, 

And nice pleasure-parties give. 

 

43. You will spend your leisure hours, 

In a garden tending flowers.

   

November by William Cullen Bryant

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun! 

One mellow smile through the soft vapory air, 

Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, 

Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare. 

One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, 

And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast, 

And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze, 

Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last. 

Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee 

Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way, 

The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, 

And man delight to linger in thy ray. 

Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear 

The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air. 

Be Drunk by Charles Baudelaire

One must be for ever drunken: that is the sole question of importance. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time that bruises your shoulders and bends you to the earth, you must be drunken without cease. But how? With wine, with poetry, with virtue, with what you please. But be drunken. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass by a moat, or in the dull loneliness of your chamber, you should waken up, your intoxication already lessened or gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the timepiece; ask of all that flees, all that sighs, all that revolves, all that sings, all that speaks, ask of these the hour; and wind and wave and star and bird and timepiece will answer you:

“It is the hour to be drunken! Lest you be the martyred slaves of Time, intoxicate yourselves, be drunken without cease!

With wine, with poetry, with virtue, or with what you will.”

(from Petits Poèmes en Prose, 1869, translated by James Huneker, 1919)