The Ballad of Roger Brown

I once met a man named Roger Brown, Who came from lands afar: He brought to me the secrets of life Concealed inside a jar. "Hello there, young man," he spelled out loud− A sound of curious shade− And mocked me with a sinister smile While with the jar he played. "Would you like to see what I have here, Here brought to your delight?" "You take nothing from a stranger," said I "My mother taught me right". "No stranger am I," he cried; "in truth Your kin, and dear, dear friend". He held out the jar to me in vain: I would not condescend. "Just answer, and from you I will take The jar: just who are you?" He grinned, then I knew; those ruddy eyes Their objects they were two. "My name, my friend, is Roger Brown; I have come from lands afar And bring the secrets of this life To reveal from out this jar." "Your name, my friend, is, I know, Old Nick; To me you are no friend, Go away, down to the lands afar: Your venom do not spend." Still he grinned a broad and rotten grin, He raised his arm, and spang on the ground the jar threw down, and thus The jar, it burst with a bang. From the shards came sounds of varied sorts, A spate of sounds pell-mell That stemmed from sundry strata of earth From heaven through to hell.

The shards then started to melt and thaw And I, all while he laughed And laughed, got one of the shatters up And hid it very daft. He laughed, and then was gone in a flash. I saw myself so clearer In the piece of jar remaining here: Inside there was a mirror! I once met a man named Roger Brown Who came in mists of steam: He tried to fool me, but I fooled him−  He came to me in a dream. Yet he did change my life, for the shard He left me was a gem: For in that little shiny fragment I found out who I am.

A Vicious Cycle

The flitting firefly once again complained:
"Would that I was that torch-like, big blond star,
In ever blue to burn, and never waned!"
And yet the star, moon-jealous from afar:

"That the translucent shine I could so mime,
That saw with sighs the sweet and cherished sight
Of Grecian column and of Gothic time!"
But, gazing at the sun, the moon wants light:

"Alack! if I could have that great, oh, that
Immortal blaze, that all of light subsumes!"
Yet said the sun, heeling that rutilant hat:

 
"This halo, light of numen, weighs, consumes…
    This boundless blue umbrella, wearisome sky…
    Oh, why was I not born a simple firefly?"

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This is a translation of a sonnet by Machado de Assis:


Círculo Vicioso

Bailando no ar, gemia inquieto vaga-lume:
"Quem me dera que fosse aquela loura estrela,
Que arde no eterno azul, como uma eterna vela!"
Mas a estrela, fitando a lua, com ciúme:

"Pudesse eu copiar o transparente lume,
Que, da grega coluna à gótica janela,
Contemplou, suspirosa, a fronte amada e bela!"
Mas a lua, fitando o sol, com azedume:

"Mísera! tivesse eu aquela enorme, aquela
Claridade imortal, que toda a luz resume!"
Mas o sol, inclinando a rútila capela:

"Pesa-me esta brilhante auréola de nume...
Enfara-me esta azul e desmedida umbela...
Por que não nasci eu um simples vaga-lume?"

A Poet's Heart

To Plato I give all my pause.
My cause to contemplate,
In awe, the great philosopher,
Is his power−to narrate.

So Long as Men Can Breathe

The man of hundred-masks is thought to be
A hundred men, so large his soul, too large
It seems for such a simple body to
Contain: a hundred souls in just one man.

A bygone poet come again, a king,
A peerage made of learned men, a queen,
A peer, by king or queen a bastard born--
A kingly soul must have a lordly name.

The hoity-toity cannot brook to vaunt
A swain, a simple country boy, and grant
The epithet "the bard", that highest rank,
So gladly, to a lowborn glover's son.

Yet we all live by bread and get the pall:
Great men are greatly born, where'er begot;
He was himself and in himself contained
A hundred men: for all of time. Amen.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 by David Gilmour

I just wanted to share this:

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,	5
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 owest;	10
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.