The Old Stoic

Riches I hold in light esteem,
And love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanish'd with the morn:

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, "Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!"

Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore:
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.

Emily Brontë

Beatrix Potter

http://internetarchive.wordpress.com/2006/12/15/cute-trix-the-art-and-stories-of-beatrix-potter/

[II]

Todo amor es fantasía;
él inventa el año, el día,
la hora y su melodía;
inventa el amante y, más,
la amada. No prueba nada,
contra el amor, que la amada
no haya existido jamás.



Antonio Machado,"Otras Canciones a Guiomar"

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The Far Side Of Your Moon

The far side of your moon is black,

And glorious grows the vine;

Ask anything of me you lack,

But only what is mine.

Yours is the great wheel of the sun

And yours the unclouded sky;

Then take my stars, take every one

But wear them openly.

Walking in splendor through the plain

For all the world to see,

Since none alive shall view again

The match of you and me.

Robert Graves

Memento


Like a reminder of this life
of trams, sun, sparrows,
and the flighty uncontrolledness
of streams leaping like thermometers,
and because ducks are quacking somewhere
above the crackling of the last, paper-thin ice,
and because children are crying bitterly
(remember children's lives are so sweet!)
and because in the drunken, shimmering starlight
the new moon whoops it up,
and a stocking crackles a bit at the knee,
gold in itself and tinged by the sun,
like a reminder of life,
and because there is resin on tree trunks,
and because I was madly mistaken i
n thinking that my life was over,
like a reminder of my life -
you entered into me on stockinged feet.
You entered - neither too late nor too early -
at exactly the right time, as my very own,
and with a smile, uprooted me
from memories, as from a grave.
And I, once again whirling among
the painted horses, gladly exchange,
for one reminder of life, all its memories.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Barefoot

We took off our shoes
In the middle of the hot city.
And we looked so loose,
Like newborn and pretty.
With the same speed, if we could
Free our thoughts for a while
From their heavy boots —
It would be easier, mile after mile,
To leap barefoot into childhood.

Abraham Sutzkever
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To John Clare

Well, honest John, how fare you now at home?
The spring is come, and birds are building nests;
The old cock-robin to the sty is come,
With olive feathers and its ruddy breast;
And the old cock, with wattles and red comb,
Struts with the hens, and seems to like some best,
Then crows, and looks about for little crumbs,
Swept out by little folks an hour ago;
The pigs sleep in the sty; the bookman comes--
The little boy lets home-close nesting go,
And pockets tops and taws, where daisies blow,
To look at the new number just laid down,
With lots of pictures, and good stories too,
And Jack the Giant-killer's high renown.

John Clare

Amedeo Modigliani

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Marc Chagall, Aleko

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Frida Kahlo, Raíces

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