Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 69

I hunt for the golden stag.

You may smile, my friends, but I

pursue the vision that eludes me.

I run across hills and dales, I wander

through nameless lands, because I am

hunting for the golden stag.

You come and buy in the market

and go back to your homes laden with

goods, but the spell of the homeless

winds has touched me I know not when

and where.

I have no care in my heart; all my

belongings I have left far behind me.

I run across hills and dales, I wander

through nameless lands--because I am

hunting for the golden stag.

Wilfred Owen – Music

I have been urged by earnest violins
And drunk their mellow sorrows to the slake
Of all my sorrows and my thirsting sins.
My heart has beaten for a brave drum's sake.
Huge chords have wrought me mighty: I have hurled
Thuds of gods' thunder. And with old winds pondered
Over the curse of this chaotic world,-
With low lost winds that maundered as they wandered.

I have been gay with trivial fifes that laugh;
And songs more sweet than possible things are sweet;
And gongs, and oboes. Yet I guessed not half
Life's symphony till I had made hearts beat,
And touched Love's body into trembling cries,
And blown my love's lips into laughs and sighs.

Charles Bukowski – This

self-congratulatory nonsense as the
famous gather to applaud their seeming
greatness
you
wonder where
the real ones are
what
giant cave
hides them
as
the deathly talentless
bow to
accolades
as
the fools are
fooled
again
you
wonder where
the real ones are
if there are
real ones.
this self-congratulatory nonsense
has lasted
decades
and
with some exceptions
centuries.
this
is so dreary
is so absolutely pitiless
it
churns the gut to
powder
shackles hope
it
makes little things
like
pulling up a shade
or
putting on your shoes
or
walking out on the street
more difficult
near
damnable
as
the famous gather to
applaud their
seeming
greatness
as
the fools are
fooled
again
humanity
you sick
motherfucker.

Charlotte Mew – In The Fields

Lord when I look at lovely things which pass,

Under old trees the shadow of young leaves

Dancing to please the wind along the grass,

Or the gold stillness of the August sun on the August sheaves;

Can I believe there is a heavenlier world than this?

And if there is

Will the heart of any everlasting thing

Bring me these dreams that take my breath away?

They come at evening with the home-flying rooks and the scent

of hay,

Over the fields. They come in spring.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Let Us Give Thanks

For the courage which comes when we call,

While troubles like hailstones fall;

For the help that is somehow nigh,

In the deepest night when we cry;

For the path that is certainly shown

When we pray in the dark alone,

Let us give thanks.

For the knowledge we gain if we wait

And bear all the buffets of fate;

For the vision that beautifies sight

If we look under wrong for the right;

For the gleam of the ultimate goal

That shines on each reverent soul:

Let us give thanks.

For the consciousness stirring in creeds

That love is the thing the world needs;

For the cry of the travailing earth

That is giving a new faith birth;

For the God we are learning to find

In the heart and the soul and the mind:

Let us give thanks.

For the growth of the spirit through pain,

Like a plant in the soil and the rain;

For the dropping of needless things

Which the sword of a sorrow brings;

For the meaning and purpose of life

Which dawns on us out of the strife:

Let us give thanks.

For the solace that comes to our grief

In knowing earth's season is brief;

For the certitude given by faith

Of the continents out beyond death;

For the glorious thought that each day

Is speeding us thereward away:

Let us give thanks.