From The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
The deeper the sorrow that carves into your being, the more joy that you can contain.
joy and sorrow - Together they come and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep on your bed.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides,
that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered.
Patient, over patient, is the captain of my ship.
The wind blows, and restless are the sails;
Even the rudder begs direction;
Yet quietly my captain awaits my silence.
And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they too have heard me patiently.
Now they shall wait no longer.
I am ready.
Roger Bear - Wendy Cope
On my comfortable bed,
I stare at the ceiling
Until I am fed up
With thinking and feeling
from Dead Poets Society
So often we don't do what our heart tells us to, we wait and then it is
to
late.
You can do what is your burning ambition - just set about doing it now!
Byron (died aged 36)
"My time has been passed viciously and agreeably; at thirty-one, so few
years months hours or minutes remain that "Carpe Diem" is not enough.
I
have
been obliged to crop even the seconds - for who can trust to tomorrow?"
Leisure - W H Davis
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep and cows
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
from Song of the Open Road - Walt Whitman
for my grandmother Morval Kirby, I read it at her memorial service...
Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!
They too are on the road -- they are the swift and majestic men -- they are the greatest women,
Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas,
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
Habitu�s of many distant countries, habitu�s of far-distant dwellings,
Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,
Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children,
Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of coffins,
Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious years each emerging from that which preceded it,
Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases,
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,
Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded and well-grain'd manhood,
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass'd, content,
Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe,
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.
The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me - Delmore Schwarz
The heavy bear who goes with me
A manifold honey to smear his face
Clumsy and lumbering here and there
The central ton of every place,
The hungry beating brutish one
In love with candy, anger, sleep,
Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,
Climbs the building, kicks the football,
Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.
Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,
That heavy bear who sleeps with me,
Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,
A sweetness intimate as the water�s clasp.
Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope
Trembles and shows the darkness beneath,
- The strutting show-off is terrified,
Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,
Trembles to think that his quivering meat
Must finally wince to nothing at all.
That inescapable animal walks with me,
Has followed me since the black womb held,
Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,
A caricature, a swollen shadow,
A stupid clown of the spirit�s motive,
Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,
The secret life of belly and bone,
Opaque, too near, my private yet unknown,
Stretches to embrace the very dear
With whom I would walk without him near,
Touches her grossly, although a word
Would bare my heart and make me clear,
Stumbles, flounders and strives to be fed,
Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,
Amid the hundred million of his kind,
The scrimmage of appetitite everywhere.
Email me with some more!
