Rudyard Kipling – The Conundrum of the Workshops

When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,  

Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold;  

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,  

Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?"  

  

Wherefore he called to his wife and fled to fashion his work anew—

The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;  

And he left his lore to the use of his sons—and that was a glorious gain  

When the Devil chuckled: "Is it Art?" in the ear of the branded Cain.  

  

They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,  

Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?"

The stone was dropped by the quarry-side, and the idle derrick swung,  

While each man talked of the aims of art, and each in an alien tongue.  

  

They fought and they talked in the north and the south, they talked and they fought in the west,

Till the waters rose on the jabbering land, and the poor Red Clay had rest—  

Had rest till the dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start, 

And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art?"  

  

The tale is old as the Eden Tree—as new as the new-cut tooth—  

For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;  

And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,  

The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?" 

  

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,  

We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg,  

We know that the tail must wag the dog, as the horse is drawn by the cart;  

But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?"  

  

When the flicker of London's sun falls faint on the club-room's green and gold, 

The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mold—  

They scratch with their pens in the mold of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start  

When the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it art?"  

  

Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the four great rivers flow,  

And the wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,

And if we could come when the sentry slept, and softly scurry through,  

By the favor of God we might know as much—as our father Adam knew.

Rabindranath Tagore – Free Love

By all means they try to hold me secure who love me in this world.

But it is otherwise with thy love which is greater than theirs,

and thou keepest me free.

Lest I forget them they never venture to leave me alone.

But day passes by after day and thou art not seen.

If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart,

thy love for me still waits for my love.

Anne Brontë – Lines composed in a Wood on a Windy Day

My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring

And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;

For above and around me the wild wind is roaring,

Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.

The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing,

The bare trees are tossing their branches on high;

The dead leaves, beneath them, are merrily dancing,

The white clouds are scudding across the blue sky.

I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing

The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray;

I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing,

And hear the wild roar of their thunder today!

Carl Sandburg – Wilderness

There is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes … 

a red tongue for raw meat … and the hot lapping of blood—

I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave 

it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me … a silver-gray fox … 

I sniff and guess … 

I pick things out of the wind and air … 

I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers … 

I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me … a snout and a belly … 

a machinery for eating and grunting … 

a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—

I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me … I know I came from saltblue water-gates … 

I scurried with shoals of herring … 

I blew waterspouts with porpoises … 

before land was … 

before the water went down …

before Noah … 

before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me … clambering-clawed … dog-faced … 

yawping a galoot’s hunger … hairy under the armpits … 

here are the hawk-eyed hankering men … here are the blond and blue-eyed women … 

here they hide curled asleep waiting … ready to snarl and kill … 

ready to sing and give milk … waiting—

I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird … 

and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams 

and fights among the Sierra crags of what 

I want … and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, 

warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, 

gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—

And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, 

under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—

and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, 

a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: 

it came from God-Knows-Where: 

it is going to God-Knows-Where—

For I am the keeper of the zoo: 

I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: 

I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

Robert Frost – Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."