Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 59

O woman, you are not merely the

handiwork of God, but also of men;

these are ever endowing you with

beauty from their hearts.

Poets are weaving for you a web

with threads of golden imagery;

painters are giving your form ever

new immortality.

The sea gives its pearls, the mines

their gold, the summer gardens their

flowers to deck you, to cover you, to

make you more precious.

The desire of men's hearts has shed

its glory over your youth.

You are one half woman and one

half dream.

Wilfred Owen – Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

W. H. Auden – On the Circuit

Among pelagian travelers,

Lost on their lewd conceited way

To Massachusetts, Michigan,

Miami or L.A.,

An airborne instrument I sit,

Predestined nightly to fulfill

Columbia-Giesen-Management's

Unfathomable will,

By whose election justified,

I bring my gospel of the Muse

To fundamentalists, to nuns,

to Gentiles and to Jews,

And daily, seven days a week,

Before a local sense has jelled,

From talking-site to talking-site

Am jet-or-prop-propelled.

Though warm my welcome everywhere,

I shift so frequently, so fast,

I cannot now say where I was 

The evening before last,

Unless some singular event

Should intervene to save the place,

A truly asinine remark,

A soul-bewitching face,

Or blessed encounter, full of joy,

Unscheduled on the Giesen Plan,

With, here, an addict of Tolkien,

There, a Charles Williams fan.

Since Merit but a dunghill is,

I mount the rostrum unafraid:

Indeed, 'twere damnable to ask

If I am overpaid.

Spirit is willing to repeat

Without a qualm the same old talk,

But Flesh is homesick for our snug

Apartment in New York.

A sulky fifty-six, he finds

A change of mealtime utter hell,

Grown far too crotchety to like

A luxury hotel.

The Bible is a goodly book

I always can peruse with zest,

But really cannot say the same

For Hilton's Be My Guest.

Nor bear with equanimity

The radio in students' cars,

Muzak at breakfast, or--dear God!--

Girl-organists in bars.

Then, worst of all, the anxious thought,

Each time my plane begins to sink

And the No Smoking sign comes on:

What will there be to drink?

Is this a milieu where I must

How grahamgreeneish!  How infra dig!

Snatch from the bottle in my bag 

An analeptic swig?

Another morning comes: I see,

Dwindling below me on the plane,

The roofs of one more audience

I shall not see again.

God bless the lot of them, although

I don't remember which was which:

God bless the U.S.A., so large,

So friendly, and so rich.

Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 51

Then finish the last song and let us

leave.

Forget this night when the night is

no more.

Whom do I try to clasp in my

arms? Dreams can never be made captive.

My eager hands press emptiness to

my heart and it bruises my breast.

Wilfred Owen – Asleep

Under his helmet, up against his pack,
After so many days of work and waking,
Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back.

There, in the happy no-time of his sleeping,
Death took him by the heart. There heaved a quaking
Of the aborted life within him leaping,
Then chest and sleepy arms once more fell slack.

And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping
From the intruding lead, like ants on track.

Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking
Of great wings, and the thoughts that hung the stars,
High-pillowed on calm pillows of God's making,
Above these clouds, these rains, these sleets of lead,
And these winds' scimitars,
-Or whether yet his thin and sodden head
Confuses more and more with the low mould,
His hair being one with the grey grass
Of finished fields, and wire-scrags rusty-old,
Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass!
He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold,
Than we who wake, and waking say Alas