"Us Two" - by A. A. Milne

Us Two by A. A. Milne

Wherever I am, there's always Pooh, There's always Pooh and Me. Whatever I do, he wants to do, "Where are you going today?" says Pooh: "Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too. Let's go together," says Pooh, says he. "Let's go together," says Pooh. "What's twice eleven?" I said to Pooh. ("Twice what?" said Pooh to Me.) "I think it ought to be twenty-two." "Just what I think myself," said Pooh. "It wasn't an easy sum to do, But that's what it is," said Pooh, said he. "That's what it is," said Pooh. "Let's look for dragons," I said to Pooh. "Yes, let's," said Pooh to Me. We crossed the river and found a few- "Yes, those are dragons all right," said Pooh. "As soon as I saw their beaks I knew. That's what they are," said Pooh, said he. "That's what they are," said Pooh. "Let's frighten the dragons," I said to Pooh. "That's right," said Pooh to Me. "I'm not afraid," I said to Pooh, And I held his paw and I shouted "Shoo! Silly old dragons!"- and off they flew. "I wasn't afraid," said Pooh, said he, "I'm never afraid with you." So wherever I am, there's always Pooh, There's always Pooh and Me. "What would I do?" I said to Pooh, "If it wasn't for you," and Pooh said: "True, It isn't much fun for One, but Two, Can stick together, says Pooh, says he. "That's how it is," says Pooh.

Promenade à seize ans - by Guy de Maupassant

Promenade à seize ans 

Guy De Maupassant

~~~~~~~ /// ~~~~~~~

La terre souriait au ciel bleu. L'herbe verte
De gouttes de rosée était encore couverte.
Tout chantait par le monde ainsi que dans mon coeur.
Caché dans un buisson, quelque merle moqueur
Sifflait. Me raillait-il ? Moi, je n'y songeais guère.
Nos parents querellaient, car ils étaient en guerre
Du matin jusqu'au soir, je ne sais plus pourquoi.
Elle cueillait des fleurs, et marchait près de moi.
Je gravis une pente et m'assis sur la mousse
A ses pieds. Devant nous une colline rousse
Fuyait sous le soleil jusques à l'horizon.
Elle dit : "Voyez donc ce mont, et ce gazon
Jauni, cette ravine au voyageur rebelle !"
Pour moi je ne vis rien, sinon qu'elle était belle.
Alors elle chanta. Combien j'aimais sa voix !
Il fallut revenir et traverser le bois.
Un jeune orme tombé barrait toute la route ;
J'accourus ; je le tins en l'air comme une voûte
Et, le front couronné du dôme verdoyant,
La belle enfant passa sous l'arbre en souriant.
Émus de nous sentir côte à côte, et timides,
Nous regardions nos pieds et les herbes humides.
Les champs autour de nous étaient silencieux.
Parfois, sans me parler, elle levait les yeux ;
Alors il me semblait (je me trompe peut-être)
Que dans nos jeunes coeurs nos regards faisaient naître
Beaucoup d'autres pensers, et qu'ils causaient tout bas
Bien mieux que nous, disant ce que nous n'osions pas.

My Shadow - by Robert Louis Stevenson

 

My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed. The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow-- Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow; For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball, And he sometimes goes so little that there's none of him at all. He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play, And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way. He stays so close behind me, he's a coward you can see; I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me! One morning, very early, before the sun was up, I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup; But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head, Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

The Birds - by William Blake

        ******************************   The Birds
---------
William Blake (1757-1827)

He. Where thou dwellest, in what grove,
Tell me Fair One, tell me Love;
Where thou thy charming nest dost build,
O thou pride of every field!

She. Yonder stands a lonely tree,
There I live and mourn for thee;
Morning drinks my silent tear,
And evening winds my sorrow bear.

He. O thou summer's harmony,
I have liv'd and mourn'd for thee;
Each day I mourn along the wood,
And night hath heard my sorrows loud.

She. Dost thou truly long for me?
And am I thus sweet to thee?
Sorrow now is at an end,
O my Lover and my Friend!

He. Come, on wings of joy we'll fly
To where my bower hangs on high;
Come, and make thy calm retreat
Among green leaves and blossoms sweet.     

Solitude - by Alexander Pope

 

Solitude  --------
by  Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield shade,
In winter, fire.

Blest, who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years, slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day.

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

A Smile To Remember - by Charles Bukowski

A Smile To Remember Charles Bukowski *** // *** we had goldfish and they circled around and around in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes covering the picture window and my mother, always smiling, wanting us all to be happy, told me, 'be happy Henry!' and she was right: it's better to be happy if you can but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn't understand what was attacking him from within. my mother, poor fish, wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a week, telling me to be happy: 'Henry, smile! why don't you ever smile?' and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the saddest smile I ever saw one day the goldfish died, all five of them, they floated on the water, on their sides, their eyes still open, and when my father got home he threw them to the cat there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother smiled.

La Feuille - par Antoine Vincent Arnault

Antoine Vincent Arnault (1766-1834) La feuille De ta tige détachée, Pauvre feuille desséchée, Où vas-tu ? - Je n'en sais rien. L'orage a brisé le chêne Qui seul était mon soutien. De son inconstante haleine Le zéphyr ou l'aquilon Depuis ce jour me promène De la forêt à la plaine, De la montagne au vallon. Je vais ou le vent me mène, Sans me plaindre ou m'effrayer: Je vais où va toute chose, Où va la feuille de rose Et la feuille de laurier.

"What's Sauce Pour L'oie ..." - by Ogden Nash

What's Sauce Pour L'oie  Is Sauce Pour L'état C'est Moi by Ogden Nash (1902-1971) === // === I know, mon Général, it hurts your pride To see your cherished language Yankeefied, Your pure, precise Parisian prunes and prisms Walk cheek by jowl with Americanisms: Your earnest students of Racine and Zola Consuming le hot dog and Coca-Cola, Or roaming through le drugstore in a quest For paperbacks depicting le Far Oest. Although I do not wonder that you fuss, Have you considered what you've done to us? Just take a gander at your addenda, pardner, To the heritage of Shakespeare and Ring Lardner. Let's to the Opal Room, where for a fee We're seated ringside by a mater d'— In such crepuscule ambience are we meant To reach a démarche or perhaps détente? A young chantoose is facing her premeer. On her dressing-room chaise lounge lies her brazeer. Aglow from kneading by a skilled massoose, Her cheek is pink, her longeray chartroose. The gourmet meal is guaranteed to please, Concluding with that hybrid treat, bleu cheese. I, too, conclude with this observation cursory: English makes prettier French than vice versary.

The Naming of Cats - by T.S. Eliot

THE NAMING OF CATS by T. S. Eliot The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn’t just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily, Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James, Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey – All of them sensible everyday names. There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter, Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames: Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter – But all of them sensible everyday names. But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular, A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified, Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular, Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride? Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum, Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat, Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum – Names that never belong to more than one cat. But above and beyond there’s still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess; The name that no human research can discover – But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

L'âme en Fleur - Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

L'âme en Fleur

Chanson (L'âme en Fleur) ---------- /// ---------- Si vous n'avez rien à me dire, Pourquoi venir auprès de moi? Pourquoi me faire ce sourire Qui tournerait la tête au roi? Si vous n'avez rien à me dire, Pourquoi venir auprès de moi? Si vous n'avez rien à m'apprendre, Pourquoi me pressez-vous la main? Sur le rêve angélique et tendre, Auquel vous songez en chemin, Si vous n'avez rien à m'apprendre, Pourquoi me pressez-vous la main? Si vous voulez que je m'en aille, Pourquoi passez-vous par ici? Lorsque je vous vois, je tressaille : C'est ma joie et c'est mon souci. Si vous voulez que je m'en aille, Pourquoi passez-vous par ici?

Song (The Soul in Flower) ---------- /// ---------- If you have nothing to say to me, why did you come to me? Why give me this smile that would turn a king's head? If you have nothing to say to me, why come to me? If you have nothing to tell me, why press my hand? On angelic and tender dreams, that you dream along the way, if you have nothing to teach me, why press my hand? If you want me to go, why are you passing this way? When I see you, I tremble: It is my joy and it is my concern. If you want me to go, why are you passing this way?

Happy As The Day Is Long - James Tate

Happy As The Day Is Long ===== ----- ===== by James Tate (1943 -) I take the long walk up the staircase to my secret room. Today's big news: they found Amelia Earhart's shoe, size 9. 1992: Charlie Christian is bebopping at Minton's in 1941. Today, the Presidential primaries have failed us once again. We'll look for our excitement elsewhere, in the last snow that is falling, in tomorrow's Gospel Concert in Springfield. It's a good day to be a cat and just sleep. Or to read the Confessions of Saint Augustine. Jesus called the sons of Zebedee the Sons of Thunder. In my secret room, plans are hatched: we'll explore the Smoky Mountains. Then we'll walk along a beach: Hallelujah! (A letter was just delivered by Overnight Express-- it contained nothing of importance, I slept through it.) (I guess I'm trying to be "above the fray.") The Russians, I know, have developed a language called "Lincos" designed for communicating with the inhabitants of other worlds. That's been a waste of time, not even a postcard. But then again, there are tree-climbing fish, called anabases. They climb the trees out of stupidity, or so it is said. Who am I to judge? I want to break out of here. A bee is not strong in geometry: it cannot tell a square from a triangle or a circle. The locker room of my skull is full of panting egrets. I'm saying that strictly for effect. In time I will heal, I know this, or I believe this. The contents and furnishings of my secret room will be labeled and organized so thoroughly it will be a little frightening. What I thought was infinite will turn out to be just a couple of odds and ends, a tiny miscellany, miniature stuff, fragments of novelties, of no great moment. But it will also be enough, maybe even more than enough, to suggest an immense ritual and tradition. And this makes me very happy.

 **** TPO’s take :   Anything and everything can happen in a day! ****

 

The Art of Drowning - by Billy Collins

The Art Of Drowning ---------------- by Billy Collins (1941 - ) I wonder how it all got started, this business about seeing your life flash before your eyes while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence, could startle time into such compression, crushing decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds. After falling off a steamship or being swept away in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand turning the pages of an album of photographs- you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat. How about a short animated film, a slide presentation? Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph? Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash? Your whole existence going off in your face in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography- nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned. Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance here, some bolt of truth forking across the water, an ultimate Light before all the lights go out, dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage. But if something does flash before your eyes as you go under, it will probably be a fish, a quick blur of curved silver darting away, having nothing to do with your life or your death. The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom, leaving behind what you have already forgotten, the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds.

Bonjour, Suzon - Alfred de Musset

Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) Chanson : Bonjour, Suzon... ---------- /// ---------- Bonjour, Suzon, ma fleur des bois ! Es-tu toujours la plus jolie ? Je reviens, tel que tu me vois, D'un grand voyage en Italie. Du paradis j'ai fait le tour ; J'ai fait des vers, j'ai fait l'amour. Mais que t'importe ? (Bis.) Je passe devant ta maison ; Ouvre ta porte. Bonjour, Suzon ! Je t'ai vue au temps des lilas. Ton coeur joyeux venait d'éclore. Et tu disais : " Je ne veux pas, Je ne veux pas qu'on m'aime encore. " Qu'as-tu fait depuis mon départ ? Qui part trop tôt revient trop tard. Mais que m'importe ? (Bis.) Je passe devant ta maison ; Ouvre ta porte. Bonjour, Suzon !

As I Grew Older - by Langston Hughes

As I Grew Older

by

Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun— My dream. And then the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream. Rose until it touched the sky— The wall. Shadow. I am black. I lie down in the shadow. No longer the light of my dream before me, Above me. Only the thick wall. Only the shadow. My hands! My dark hands! Break through the wall! Find my dream! Help me to shatter this darkness, To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams Of sun!

   

Il pleure dans mon Coeur - Paul Verlaine

Il pleure dans mon Coeur

----- // -----

Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)

Il pleure dans mon coeur

Comme il pleut sur la ville.

Quelle est cette langueur

Qui pénêtre mon coeur ?

O bruit doux de la pluie

Par terre et sur les toits !

Pour un coeur qui s’ennuie,

O le chant de la pluie !

Il pleure sans raison

Dans ce coeur qui s’écoeure.

Quoi ! nulle trahison ?

Ce deuil est sans raison.

C’est bien la pire peine

De ne savoir pourquoi,

Sans amour et sans haine,

Mon coeur a tant de peine.

A Dream Within a Dream - by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

(1809-1849)

A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow-- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand-- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep--while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?