Marlowe

  MARLOWE: Hands off, I say! Stay then, and every devil may come to hear, And heaven may have it's laugh! I ever speak As if there were a Something there to listen: The shadow of the little mind, grotesque, Confident, helpless, thrown upon the clouds To serve him for a god. And I have sworn There is no God. --Ah, but there should be one! There should be one. And there's the bitterness Of this unending torture-place for men; For the proud soul who craves a Perfectness That might out-wear the rotting of all things Rooted in earth, that bloom so piercing fair A little while, a little while,--O God, The little while!... No, something, something perfect, man or beast! What is it all, without?--And what's a man? To go a blind way seeking here and there, Spending and spending for the Beautiful, On shams and shows, and clay that worms devour; Banquet and famine, till all's gone, all's gone; And he is fain to fill that tortured craving With husks the swine do eat. --Almighty Void! And there is nothing there for me to curse, In this despair. I tell thee, I have come Unto a horror no man dreams upon. Nothing is left and nothing is, to curse. For you may hear the crying of the wind, Crying despair and darkness round the earth, Without a hope of rest. But who has caught That torturer by the gray, ancient locks, Or who can stab the wind? Hast ever thought Of the thirst of hatred with no thing to hate? Here, here behold me with my enemy! -- The Void!

Marlowe

BAME: I saw thee first, Ay, from the first day when you cheated them With tales of old acquaintance, and made fond, And charmed the eyes of her, and took her heart, But for a whim. --Oh, I was not far off! Tho' you had made me a butt before them all, And turned her favor from the laughing-stock. Nothing to you it was! --All other folk,-- Their homes, so many ant-hills! -- All the world A show for you, a cheaper show than yours;-- A pageant wagon,--with the people, here, And overhead, their angels and their God, Another show! --And you to laugh at all. Laugh, laugh! Whatever 't was, 't is all gone by, Never to laugh at more. But I can tell you, Oh, I can tell you, now it is too late, That she was pining for you. --Now she's wed. Alison's gone! You will not have her now. Ah, now you are no more to her than I! The spell is broken. She would see you now But what you are--a strolling devilry, A knave and blasphemer, Athiest! So. You have heard it all. The wheel turns, and it shall grind thee too! Thou wilt not have her.

Rubric

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rubric
 
I’LL not believe the dullard dark,
Nor all the winds that weep,
But I shall find the farthest dream
That kisses me, asleep.
 
 
 
 

SONNET IN A GARDEN

SONNET IN A GARDEN
by: Josephine Preston Peabody (1874-1922) DUMB Mother of all music, let me rest On thy great heart while summer days pass by; While all the heat up-quivers, let me lie Close gathered to the fragrance of thy breast. Let not the pipe of birds from some high nest Give voice unto a thought of melody, Nor dreaming clouds afloat along the sky Meet any wind of promise from the west. Save for that grassy breath that never mars The peace, but seems a musing of thine own, Keep thy dear silence. So, embraced, alone, Forgetful of relentless prison-bars, My soul shall hear all songs, unsung, unknown, Uprising with the breath of all the stars.

SPINNING IN APRIL

SPINNING IN APRIL
  MOON in heaven's garden, among the clouds that wander, Crescent moon so young to see, above the April ways, Whiten, bloom not yet, not yet, within the twilight yonder; All my spinning is not done, for all the loitering days.   Oh, my heart has two wild wings that ever would be flying! Oh, my heart's a meadow-lark that ever would be free! Well it is that I must spin until the light is dying; Well it is the little wheel must turn all day for me!   All the hill-tops beckon, and beyond the western meadows Something calls for ever, calls me ever, low and clear: A little tree as young as I, the coming summer shadows,-- The voice of running waters that I always thirst to hear.   Oftentime the plea of it has set my wings a-beating; Oftentime it coaxes, as I sit weary-wise, Till the wild life hastens out to wild things all entreating, And leaves me at the spinning-wheel with dark, unseeing eyes.