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Amours de Voyage, Canto III

Yet to the wondrous St. Peter's, and yet to the solemn Rotunda,
Mingling with heroes and gods, yet to the Vatican Walls,
Yet may we go, and recline, while a whole mighty world seems above us,
Gathered and fixed to all time into one roofing supreme;
Yet may we, thinking on these things, exclude what is meaner around us;
Yet, at the worst of the worst, books and a chamber remain;
Yet may we think, and forget, and possess our souls in resistance.--
Ah, but away from the stir, shouting, and gossip of war,
Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle,
Where, amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind,
Where, under mulberry-branches, the diligent rivulet sparkles,
Or amid cotton and maize peasants their water-works ply,
Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated,
Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,--
Ah, that I were far away from the crowd and the streets of the city,
Under the vine-trellis laid, O my beloved, with thee!

I. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper,--on the way to Florence.

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poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
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Geraint And Enid

O purblind race of miserable men,
How many among us at this very hour
Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves,
By taking true for false, or false for true;
Here, through the feeble twilight of this world
Groping, how many, until we pass and reach
That other, where we see as we are seen!

So fared it with Geraint, who issuing forth
That morning, when they both had got to horse,
Perhaps because he loved her passionately,
And felt that tempest brooding round his heart,
Which, if he spoke at all, would break perforce
Upon a head so dear in thunder, said:
'Not at my side. I charge thee ride before,
Ever a good way on before; and this
I charge thee, on thy duty as a wife,
Whatever happens, not to speak to me,
No, not a word!' and Enid was aghast;
And forth they rode, but scarce three paces on,

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poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Ninth Book

EVEN thus. I pause to write it out at length,
The letter of the Lady Waldemar.–

'I prayed your cousin Leigh to take you this,
He says he'll do it. After years of love,
Or what is called so,–when a woman frets
And fools upon one string of a man's name,
And fingers it for ever till it breaks,–
He may perhaps do for her such thing,
And she accept it without detriment
Although she should not love him any more
And I, who do not love him, nor love you,
Nor you, Aurora,–choose you shall repent
Your most ungracious letter, and confess,
Constrained by his convictions, (he's convinced)
You've wronged me foully. Are you made so ill,
You woman–to impute such ill to me?
We both had mothers,–lay in their bosom once.
Why, after all, I thank you, Aurora Leigh,
For proving to myself that there are things

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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An Altruistic Self-Advocacy Of A Man Wholly Enamored By An Angel (Part 1 of 2)

I have spoken many times, and in the Latter Days,
Of the Virtues I know you too, extol, in all ways
That I do-so, now it is more than apropos
For me to Testify to mine own-to show
You, and all of those who lean toward your concern,
Why it is that you love me so very much-and hopefully earn
The Respect and Love I have been due
For so very long, as it relates to you!
Your Prayers have certainly been answered, but you were not ready-
And now take pause-to open further, and steady
Your Inspired Heart, Mind, and Soul-
To prepare Them for this moment-Your Life's Ultimate Goal!
I bring to you:The Mate for Your Soul, Counterpoint for Your Mind,
And Guerdon for Your Heart-THIS is why You cannot leave US behind-
To wither and wilt, as the Precious Lily-of-the-Valley,

When left wanton for nourishment, and wholly
In need of that which now only IT may provide;
With WE two-all through OUR lives-two worlds have come to collide,
And only could came together as ONE, whence Truly prime;

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poem by Maurice Harris
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Aught

Azriel of Gerona taught
that if you look beyond the yesh
which is the aught you’ll find the naught,
the spirit that’s behind the flesh,
the truth that lies within the kernel,
hidden from the mortal eyes
of man by ayin that’s eternal,
enveloped by man’s lethal lies,
because Reality must be
eclipsed, however hard it’s sought
by I’s that lie between the Thee
which is the Naught beyond the Aught.

In Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,2008) , Michael Fishbane writes about Azriel of Gerona (36–7) :

R. Azriel pondered the mystery and depth of infinite Being, and even tried to imagine the very borderline between the knowable realm of Absolute Reality and all that might be humanly conceived or known by human minds. In his discourse he calls the first realm Naught (or ayin) , because it is wholly beyond thought and thus virtually Nothing; and the second he deems Aught (or yesh) , because it is the realm where knowable (or discernable) reality becomes and is. But the point of transition is truly neither the one nor the other, but both: it is neither wholly naught, insofar as there is a gathering towards existence (where things are nameable and determinate) , nor is it wholly aught, since this domain is still characterized by the naught (where no thing is named or differentiated.) At this borderline we have something else. What we have is an imaginable sense of aught grounded in naught; that is, a sense that the all-unfolding reality and being of existence, whose source is God, is ultimately effaced in the depths of God’s Godhood. And though we may not follow R. Azriel in his particular mystical ontology of divine emanations, we may nevertheless strain to understand his teaching as a great truth of theology––still pertinent for our lives. For what he conveys through this meditation is that whatever may be humanly sayable about God and existence is ultimately grounded in and a manifestation of the Naught. To bring our minds towards this realization is the tsk of theology. This holds as much for our common view of everyday reality, where the Aught rightly prevails and predominates, as for our sense of God, where the Naught is the ultimate reality wherein all mindfulness is eclipsed.

10/24/08

poem by Gershon Hepner
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Written At Sea

What is my quarrel with thee, beautiful sea,
That thus I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or hear thy voice but it tormenteth me?

Why do I hate thee, who art beautiful
Beyond all beauty, when the nights are cool,
And the stars fade because the moon is full?

Why do I hate thee? Thou art new and young,
And life is thine for loving, and thy tongue
Hath tones that I have known and loved and sung.

Thou hast a smile which would my smiling greet;
Thy brave heart beateth as my own doth beat,
And thou hast tears which should be true and sweet.

Thou art a creature, strong and fair and brave,
Such as I might have given the world to have
And love and cherish;--and thou art my slave.

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poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Late Spring Snow

Late spring snow on its way.
Dead ochres and colourless greys
that have never heard of the impressionists.
It's a landscape
it's a mindscape
but it behaves like a still life.
I've been staying up late
trying to paint my way
out of my life
until dawn every morning.
The windowpane a ripening phthalo blue.
It's compositionally deranged
to hear the birds singing
when you're totally exhausted.
Mentally physically spiritually emotionally financially
gone gone gone altogether gone beyond.
All my happy endings orphaned.
A sum of depletions.
I'm living this creative life
scribbling down the notes of the picture-music

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poem by Patrick White
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The Hired Man And Floretty

The Hired Man's supper, which he sat before,
In near reach of the wood-box, the stove-door
And one leaf of the kitchen-table, was
Somewhat belated, and in lifted pause
His dextrous knife was balancing a bit
Of fried mush near the port awaiting it.

At the glad children's advent--gladder still
To find _him_ there--'Jest tickled fit to kill
To see ye all!' he said, with unctious cheer.--
'I'm tryin'-like to he'p Floretty here
To git things cleared away and give ye room
Accordin' to yer stren'th. But I p'sume
It's a pore boarder, as the poet says,
That quarrels with his victuals, so I guess
I'll take another wedge o' that-air cake,
Florett', that you're a-_learnin_' how to bake.'
He winked and feigned to swallow painfully.--

'Jest 'fore ye all come in, Floretty she

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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Frances

She will not sleep, for fear of dreams,
But, rising, quits her restless bed,
And walks where some beclouded beams
Of moonlight through the hall are shed.

Obedient to the goad of grief,
Her steps, now fast, now lingering slow,
In varying motion seek relief
From the Eumenides of woe.

Wringing her hands, at intervals--
But long as mute as phantom dim--
She glides along the dusky walls,
Under the black oak rafters grim.

The close air of the grated tower
Stifles a heart that scarce can beat,
And, though so late and lone the hour,
Forth pass her wandering, faltering feet;

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poem by Charlotte Brontë from Poems (1846)
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The Triumph Of Time

Before our lives divide for ever,
While time is with us and hands are free,
(Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever
Hand from hand, as we stand by the sea)
I will say no word that a man might say
Whose whole life's love goes down in a day;
For this could never have been; and never,
Though the gods and the years relent, shall be.

Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour,
To think of things that are well outworn?
Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower,
The dream foregone and the deed forborne?
Though joy be done with and grief be vain,
Time shall not sever us wholly in twain;
Earth is not spoilt for a single shower;
But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn.

It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart,
Smitten with sunbeams, ruined with rain.

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poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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