I have a King, who does not speak - So - wondering - thro' the hours meek I trudge the day away - Half glad when it is night - and sleep - If, haply, thro' a dream, to peep In parlors, shut by day. And if I do - when morning comes - It is as if a hundred drums Did round my pillow roll, And shouts fill all my childish sky, And Bells keep saying "Victory" From steeples in my soul!
And if I dont - the little Bird Within the Orchard, is not heard, And I omit to pray "Father, thy will be done" today For my will goes the other way, And it were perjury!
Ho un Re, che non parla - Così - fantasticando - lungo le ore docile Consumo i miei giorni - Quasi lieta quando è notte - e dormo - Se, per caso, durante un sogno, sbircio Nel salotto, chiuso di giorno. E se lo faccio - quando arriva il mattino - È come se cento tamburi Rullassero intorno al mio cuscino, E il rumore riempisse tutto il mio cielo infantile, E le Campane continuassero dicendo "Vittoria" Da campanili nella mia anima!
E se non lo faccio - il piccolo Uccello Dentro il Frutteto, non si sente, Ed io tralascio di pregare "Padre, sia fatta la tua volontà" oggi Perché la mia volontà va per altre strade, E sarebbe spergiuro!
Will there really be a "morning"? Is there such a thing as "Day"? Could I see it from the mountains If I were as tall as they? Has it feet like Water lilies? Has it feathers like a Bird? Is it brought from famous countries Of which I have never heard?
Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor! Oh some Wise Man from the skies! Please to tell a little Pilgrim Where the place called "morning" lies!
There is another sky, ever serene and fair, and there is another sunshine, thò it be darkness there. Never mind faded forests, Austin, never mind silent fields. Here is a little forest whose leaf is ever green. Here is a brighter garden. Where not a frost has been, in it's unfading flowers I hear the bright bee hum, prithee, my Brother, into my garden come.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18)
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Then a lawyer said, "But what of our Laws, master? " And he answered: You delight in laying down laws, Yet you delight more in breaking them. Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter. But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore, And when you destroy them, the ocean laughs with you. Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent. But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-towers, But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness? What of the cripple who hates dancers? What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant things? What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless? And of him who comes early to the wedding-feast, and when over-fed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters law-breakers? What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun? They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws. And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows? And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth? But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you? You who travel with the wind, what weathervane shall direct your course? What man's law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man's prison door? What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man's iron chains? And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man's path? People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing ?