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It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE;-- And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. She was a child and I was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love-- I and my Annabel Lee-- With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud by night Chilling my Annabel Lee; So that her high-born kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me:-- Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling And killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we-- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in Heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:-- For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea-- In her tomb by the side of the sea. E. A. Poe
LinkoviBlog.hrAlekta Cica Jova Malavon
Whitman's CornerSTRANGER! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why should younot speak to me? And why should I not speak to you? *** SOMETIMES with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn’d love; But now I think there is no unreturn’d love—the pay is certain, one way or another; (I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return’d; Yet out of that, I have written these songs.) *** O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse. *** WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands; Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you, Your true Soul and Body appear before me, They stand forth out of affairs—out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, forms, clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying. Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem; I whisper with my lips close to your ear, I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you. O I have been dilatory and dumb; I should have made my way straight to you long ago; I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you. I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you; None have understood you, but I understand you; None have done justice to you—you have not done justice to yourself; None but have found you imperfect—I only find no imperfection in you; None but would subordinate you—I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you; I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself. Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all; From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light; But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color’d light; From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever. O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! You have not known what you are—you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life; Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time; What you have done returns already in mockeries; (Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?) The mockeries are not you; Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk; I pursue you where none else has pursued you; Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom’d routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me; The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others, they do not balk me, The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside. There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you; There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you; No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you; No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you. As for me, I give nothing to any one, except I give the like carefully to you; I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you. Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard! These shows of the east and west are tame, compared to you; These immense meadows—these interminable rivers—you are immense and interminable as they; These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution—you are he or she who is master or mistress over them, Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution. The hopples fall from your ankles—you find an unfailing sufficiency; Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself; Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted; Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way. *** 1 IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded—of that indescribable look; Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, I dream, I dream, I dream. 2 Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains; Of skies, so beauteous after a storm—and at night the moon so unearthly bright, Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather the heaps, I dream, I dream, I dream. 3 Long, long have they pass’d—faces and trenches and fields; Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure—or away from the fallen, Onward I sped at the time—But now of their forms at night, I dream, I dream, I dream. *** WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear; Labial gossip of night—sibilant chorals; Footsteps gently ascending—mystical breezes, wafted soft and low; Ripples of unseen rivers—tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing; (Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?) I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses; Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing; With, at times, a half-dimm’d, sadden’d, far-off star, Appearing and disappearing. (Some parturition, rather—some solemn, immortal birth: On the frontiers, to eyes impenetrable, Some Soul is passing over.) *** OF him I love day and night, I dream’d I heard he was dead; And I dream’d I went where they had buried him I love—but he was not in that place; And I dream’d I wander’d, searching among burial-places, to find him; And I found that every place was a burial-place; The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is now;) The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as of the living, And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living; —And what I dream’d I will henceforth tell to every person and age, And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream’d; And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with them; And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhere, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied; And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly render’d to powder, and pour’d in the sea, I shall be satisfied; Or if it be distributed to the winds, I shall be satisfied. *** 1 DAREST thou now, O Soul, Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region, Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow? 2 No map, there, nor guide, Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. 3 I know it not, O Soul; Nor dost thou—all is a blank before us; All waits, undream’d of, in that region—that inaccessible land. 4 Till, when the ties loosen, All but the ties eternal, Time and Space, Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds, bound us. 5 Then we burst forth—we float, In Time and Space, O Soul—prepared for them; Equal, equipt at last—(O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil, O Soul. *** AS Adam, early in the morning, Walking forth from the bower, refresh’d with sleep; Behold me where I pass—hear my voice—approach, Touch me—touch the palm of your hand to my Body as I pass; Be not afraid of my Body. *** I AM he that aches with amorous love; Does the earth gravitate? Does not all matter, aching, attract all matter? So the Body of me, to all I meet, or know. *** 1 THOUGHT of the Infinite—the All! Be thou my God. 2 Lover Divine, and Perfect Comrade! Waiting, content, invisible yet, but certain, Be thou my God. 3 Thou—thou, the Ideal Man! Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving, Complete in Body, and dilate in Spirit, Be thou my God. 4 O Death—(for Life has served its turn;) Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion! Be thou my God. 5 Aught, aught, of mightiest, best, I see, conceive, or know, (To break the stagnant tie—thee, thee to free, O Soul,) Be thou my God. 6 Or thee, Old Cause, when’er advancing; All great Ideas, the races’ aspirations, All that exalts, releases thee, my Soul! All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts, Be ye my Gods! 7 Or Time and Space! Or shape of Earth, divine and wondrous! Or shape in I myself—or some fair shape, I, viewing, worship, Or lustrous orb of Sun, or star by night: Be ye my Gods. *** THAT which eludes this verse and any verse, Unheard by sharpest ear, unform’d in clearest eye or cunningest mind, Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth, And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly, Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss, Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an illusion, Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner, Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians in prose, Which sculptor never chisel’d yet, nor painter painted, Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter’d, Invoking here and now I challenge for my song. Indifferently, ’mid public, private haunts, in solitude, Behind the mountain and the wood, Companion of the city’s busiest streets, through the assemblage, It and its radiations constantly glide. In looks of fair unconscious babes, Or strangely in the coffin’d dead, Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night, As some dissolving delicate film of dreams, Hiding yet lingering. Two little breaths of words comprising it. Two words, yet all from first to last comprised in it. How ardently for it! How many ships have sail’d and sunk for it! How many travelers started from their homes and ne’er return’d! How much of genius boldly staked and lost for it! What countless stores of beauty, love, ventur’d for it! How all superbest deeds since Time began are traceable to it—and shall be to the end! How all heroic martyrdoms to it! How, justified by it, the horrors, evils, battles of the earth! How the bright fascinating lambent flames of it, in every age and land, have drawn men’s eyes, Rich as a sunset on the Norway coast, the sky, the islands, and the cliffs, Or midnight’s silent glowing northern lights unreachable. Haply God’s riddle it, so vague and yet so certain, The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it, And heaven at last for it. *** LET us twain walk aside from the rest; Now we are together privately, do you discard ceremony, Come! vouchsafe to me what has yet been vouchsafed to none—Tell me the whole story, Tell me what you would not tell your brother, wife, husband, or physician. *** THIS day, O Soul, I give you a wondrous mirror; Long in the dark, in tarnish and cloud it lay—But the cloud has pass’d, and the tarnish gone; ... Behold, O Soul! it is now a clean and bright mirror, Faithfully showing you all the things of the world. *** I WANDER all night in my vision, Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping, Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers, Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory, Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping. How solemn they look there, stretch’d and still! How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles! The wretched features of ennuyés, the white features of corpses, the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists, The gash’d bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their strong-door’d rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-born emerging from gates, and the dying emerging from gates, The night pervades them and infolds them. The married couple sleep calmly in their bed—he with his palm on the hip of the wife, and she with her palm on the hip of the husband, The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed, The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs, And the mother sleeps, with her little child carefully wrapt. The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep, The prisoner sleeps well in the prison—the run-away son sleeps; The murderer that is to be hung next day—how does he sleep? And the murder’d person—how does he sleep? The female that loves unrequited sleeps, And the male that loves unrequited sleeps, The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps, And the enraged and treacherous dispositions—all, all sleep. 2 I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and the most restless, I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them, The restless sink in their beds—they fitfully sleep. Now I pierce the darkness—new beings appear, The earth recedes from me into the night, I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is beautiful. I go from bedside to bedside—I sleep close with the other sleepers, each in turn, I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers, And I become the other dreamers. 3 I am a dance—Play up, there! the fit is whirling me fast! I am the ever-laughing—it is new moon and twilight, I see the hiding of douceurs—I see nimble ghosts whichever way I look, Cache, and cache again, deep in the ground and sea, and where it is neither ground or sea. Well do they do their jobs, those journeymen divine, Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they could, I reckon I am their boss, and they make me a pet besides, And surround me and lead me, and run ahead when I walk, To lift their cunning covers, to signify me with stretch’d arms, and resume the way; Onward we move! a gay gang of blackguards! with mirth-shouting music, and wild-flapping pennants of joy! 4 I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician; The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in the box, He who has been famous, and he who shall be famous after to-day, The stammerer, the well-form’d person, the wasted or feeble person. 5 I am she who adorn’d herself and folded her hair expectantly, My truant lover has come, and it is dark. Double yourself and receive me, darkness! Receive me and my lover too—he will not let me go without him. I roll myself upon you, as upon a bed—I resign myself to the dusk. 6 He whom I call answers me, and takes the place of my lover, He rises with me silently from the bed. Darkness! you are gentler than my lover—his flesh was sweaty and panting, I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me. My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions, I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying. Be careful, darkness! already, what was it touch’d me? I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one, I hear the heart-beat—I follow, I fade away. 7 O hot-cheek’d and blushing! O foolish hectic! O for pity’s sake, no one must see me now! my clothes were stolen while I was abed, Now I am thrust forth, where shall I run? Pier that I saw dimly last night, when I look’d from the windows! Pier out from the main, let me catch myself with you, and stay—I will not chafe you, I feel ashamed to go naked about the world. I am curious to know where my feet stand—and what this is flooding me, childhood or manhood—and the hunger that crosses the bridge between. 8 The cloth laps a first sweet eating and drinking, Laps life-swelling yolks—laps ear of rose-corn, milky and just ripen’d; The white teeth stay, and the boss-tooth advances in darkness, And liquor is spill’d on lips and bosoms by touching glasses, and the best liquor afterward. 9 I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid, Perfume and youth course through me, and I am their wake. It is my face yellow and wrinkled, instead of the old woman’s, I sit low in a straw-bottom chair, and carefully darn my grandson’s stockings. It is I too, the sleepless widow, looking out on the winter midnight, I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth. A shroud I see, and I am the shroud—I wrap a body, and lie in the coffin, It is dark here under ground—it is not evil or pain here—it is blank here, for reasons. It seems to me that everything in the light and air ought to be happy, Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough. 10 I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer, swimming naked through the eddies of the sea, His brown hair lies close and even to his head—he strikes out with courageous arms—he urges himself with his legs, I see his white body—I see his undaunted eyes, I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on the rocks. What are you doing, you ruffianly red-trickled waves? Will you kill the courageous giant? Will you kill him in the prime of his middle age? Steady and long he struggles, He is baffled, bang’d, bruis’d—he holds out while his strength holds out, The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood—they bear him away—they roll him, swing him, turn him, His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually bruis’d on rocks, Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse. 11 I turn, but do not extricate myself, Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness yet. The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind—the wreck-guns sound, The tempest lulls—the moon comes floundering through the drifts. I look where the ship helplessly heads end on—I hear the burst as she strikes—I hear the howls of dismay—they grow fainter and fainter. I cannot aid with my wringing fingers, I can but rush to the surf, and let it drench me and freeze upon me. I search with the crowd—not one of the company is wash’d to us alive; In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in rows in a barn. 12 Now of the older war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn, Washington stands inside the lines—he stands on the intrench’d hills, amid a crowd of officers, His face is cold and damp—he cannot repress the weeping drops, He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes—the color is blanch’d from his cheeks, He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided to him by their parents. The same, at last and at last, when peace is declared, He stands in the room of the old tavern—the well-belov’d soldiers all pass through, The officers speechless and slow draw near in their turns, The chief encircles their necks with his arm, and kisses them on the cheek, He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another—he shakes hands, and bids good-by to the army. 13 Now I tell what my mother told me to-day as we sat at dinner together, Of when she was a nearly grown girl, living home with her parents on the old homestead. A red squaw came one breakfast time to the old homestead, On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rush-bottoming chairs, Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-envelop’d her face, Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded exquisitely as she spoke. My mother look’d in delight and amazement at the stranger, She look’d at the freshness of her tall-borne face, and full and pliant limbs, The more she look’d upon her, she loved her, Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity, She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace—she cook’d food for her, She had no work to give her, but she gave her remembrance and fondness. The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle of the afternoon she went away, O my mother was loth to have her go away! All the week she thought of her—she watch’d for her many a month, She remember’d her many a winter and many a summer, But the red squaw never came, nor was heard of there again. 14 Now Lucifer was not dead—or if he was, I am his sorrowful terrible heir; I have been wrong’d—I am oppress’d—I hate him that oppresses me, I will either destroy him, or he shall release me. Damn him! how he does defile me! How he informs against my brother and sister, and takes pay for their blood! How he laughs when I look down the bend, after the steamboat that carries away my woman! Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale’s bulk, it seems mine; Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, the tap of my flukes is death. 15 A show of the summer softness! a contact of something unseen! an amour of the light and air! I am jealous, and overwhelm’d with friendliness, And will go gallivant with the light and air myself, And have an unseen something to be in contact with them also. O love and summer! you are in the dreams, and in me! Autumn and winter are in the dreams—the farmer goes with his thrift, The droves and crops increase, and the barns are well-fill’d. 16 Elements merge in the night—ships make tacks in the dreams, The sailor sails—the exile returns home, The fugitive returns unharm’d—the immigrant is back beyond months and years, The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his childhood, with the well-known neighbors and faces, They warmly welcome him—he is barefoot again, he forgets he is well off; The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and Welshman voyage home, and the native of the Mediterranean voyages home, To every port of England, France, Spain, enter well-fill’d ships, The Swiss foots it toward his hills—the Prussian goes his way, the Hungarian his way, and the Pole his way, The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return. 17 The homeward bound, and the outward bound, The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuyé, the onanist, the female that loves unrequited, the money-maker, The actor and actress, those through with their parts, and those waiting to commence, The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the nominee that is chosen, and the nominee that has fail’d, The great already known, and the great any time after to-day, The stammerer, the sick, the perfect-form’d, the homely, The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat and sentenced him, the fluent lawyers, the jury, the audience, The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow, the red squaw, The consumptive, the erysipelite, the idiot, he that is wrong’d, The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the dark, I swear they are averaged now—one is no better than the other, The night and sleep have liken’d them and restored them. I swear they are all beautiful; Every one that sleeps is beautiful—everything in the dim light is beautiful, The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace. 18 Peace is always beautiful, The myth of heaven indicates peace and night. The myth of heaven indicates the Soul; The Soul is always beautiful—it appears more or it appears less—it comes, or it lags behind, It comes from its embower’d garden, and looks pleasantly on itself, and encloses the world, Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting, and perfect and clean the womb cohering, The head well-grown, proportion’d and plumb, and the bowels and joints proportion’d and plumb. 19 The Soul is always beautiful, The universe is duly in order, everything is in its place, What has arrived is in its place, and what waits is in its place; The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood waits, The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the child of the drunkard waits long, and the drunkard himself waits long, The sleepers that lived and died wait—the far advanced are to go on in their turns, and the far behind are to come on in their turns, The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite—they unite now. 20 The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed, They flow hand in hand over the whole earth, from east to west, as they lie unclothed, The Asiatic and African are hand in hand—the European and American are hand in hand, Learn’d and unlearn’d are hand in hand, and male and female are hand in hand, The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover—they press close without lust—his lips press her neck, The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with measureless love, and the son holds the father in his arms with measureless love, The white hair of the mother shines on the white wrist of the daughter, The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man, friend is inarm’d by friend, The scholar kisses the teacher, and the teacher kisses the scholar—the wrong’d is made right, The call of the slave is one with the master’s call, and the master salutes the slave, The felon steps forth from the prison—the insane becomes sane—the suffering of sick persons is reliev’d, The sweatings and fevers stop—the throat that was unsound is sound—the lungs of the consumptive are resumed—the poor distress’d head is free, The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and smoother than ever, Stiflings and passages open—the paralyzed become supple, The swell’d and convuls’d and congested awake to themselves in condition, They pass the invigoration of the night, and the chemistry of the night, and awake. 21 I too pass from the night, I stay a while away, O night, but I return to you again, and love you. Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you? I am not afraid—I have been well brought forward by you; I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in whom I lay so long, I know not how I came of you, and I know not where I go with you—but I know I came well, and shall go well. I will stop only a time with the night, and rise betimes; I will duly pass the day, O my mother, and duly return to you. *** PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured, You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me, I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return, I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone, I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you. |
Out beyond...petak, 28.10.2005.
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