Velika rijeka Nil

Ti ne voliš i ne žališ mene

Ti ne voliš i ne žališ mene,
nisam više mio srcu tvom?
Gledajuć u stranu strast ti vene
sa rukama na ramenu mom.

Smiješak ti je mio, ti si mlada,
riječi moje ni nježne, ni grube.
Kolike si voljela do sada?
Koje ruke pamtiš? Koje zube?

Prošli su ko sjena kraj tvog tijela
ne srevši se sa plamenom tvojim.
Mnogima si na koljena sjela,
sada sjediš na nogama mojim.

Oči su ti poluzatvorene
i ti sanjaš o drugome nekom,
ali ljubav prošla je i mene,
pa tonem u dragom i dalekom.

Ovaj plamen sudbinom ne želi,
plahovita bješe ljubav vruća--
i ko što smo slučajno se sreli,
rastanak će biti bez ganuća.

Ti ćeš proći putem pored mene
da prokockaš sve te tužne zore.
Tek ne diraj one neljubljene
i ne mami one što ne gore.

I kad s drugim budeš jedne noći
u ljubavi, stojeći na cesti,
možda i ja onuda ću proći
i ponovo mi ćemo se sresti.

Okrenuvši drugom bliže pleći
ti ćeš glavom kimnuti mi lako.
"Dobro veče",tiho ćeš mi reći.
"Dobro veče, miss", i ja ću tako.

I ništa nam srca neće ganut,
duše bit će smirene posvema --
tko izgori, taj ne može planut,
tko ljubljaše, taj ljubavi nema.

Sergej Jesenjin


Čekaj me

Čekaj me i ja ću sigurno doći
Samo me čekaj dugo
Čekaj me i kada žute kiše noći ispune tugom
Čekaj i kada vrućine zapeku
I kada mećava briše
Čekaj i kada druge nitko ne bude čekao više
Čekaj i kada pisma prestanu stizati iz daleka
Čekaj me i kada čekanje dojadi svakome koji čeka
Čekaj me i ja ću sigurno doći

Ne slušaj kada ti kažu da je vrijeme da zaboraviš
I da te nade lažu
Nek' povjeruju i sin i mati da više ne postojim
Neka se tako umore čekati i svi drugovi moji
I gorko vino za moju dušu nek' piju kod ognjišta
Čekaj
I nemoj sjesti s njima
I nemoj piti ništa
Čekaj me i ja ću sigurno doći
Sve smrti me ubiti neće

Nek' rekne tko me čekao nije taj je imao sreće
Tko čekati ne zna
Taj neće shvatiti niti će znati drugi
Da si me spasila ti jedina čekanjem svojim dugim
Nas dvoje samo znat ćemo kako preživjeh vatru kletu
Naprosto ti si čekati znala kao nitko na svijetu

Konstantin Simonov


To Women, As Far As I'm Concerned

The feelings I don't have I don't have.
The feelings I don't have, I won't say I have.
The felings you say you have, you don't have.
The feelings you would like us both to have, we
neither of us have.
The feelings people ought to have, they never have.
If people say they've got feelings, you may be pretty
sure they haven't got them
So if you want either of us to feel anything at all
you'd better abandon all idea
of feelings altogether.

D.H.Lawrence

Intimates

Don't you care for my love? she said bitterly.

I handed her the mirror, and said:
Please address these questions to the proper person!
Please make all request to head-quarters!
In all matters of emotional importance
please approach the supreme authority direct!--
So I handed her the mirror.

And she would have broken it over my head,
but she caught sight of her own refection
and that held her spellbound for two seconds
while I fled.

D.H.Lawrence

The Elephant Slow to Mate


The elephant, the huge old beast,
is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
they wait

for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
and drink and browse

and dash in panic through the brake
of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
together, without a word.

So slowly the great hot elephant hearts
grow full of desire,
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
hiding their fire.

Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts
so they know at last
how to wait for the loneliest of feasts
for the full repast.

They do not snatch, they do not tear;
their massive blood
moves as the moon-tides, near, more near,
till they touch in flood.

D.H.Lawrence

To a young girl

MY dear, my dear, I know
More than another
What makes your heart beat so;
Not even your own mother
Can know it as I know,
Who broke my heart for her
When the wild thought,
That she denies
And has forgot,
Set all her blood astir
And glittered in her eyes.

W.B.Yeats


Shakespeare & Greyhounds

LOVE'S LABOURS LOST
Act 5, Scene 2
ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.
LONGAVILLE I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against Hector.
DUMAIN Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Act 5, Scene 2
MARGARET To have no man come over me! why, shall I always keep below stairs?
BENEDICK Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches.
MARGARET And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit, but hurt not.
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Induction, Scene 2
LORD Thy hounds shall make the wel, kin answer them And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
FIRST SERVANT Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.
Act 5, Scene 2
TRANIO O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his Greyhound, Which runs himself and catches for his master.
PETRUCHIO A good swift simile, but something currish.
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
Act 1, Scene 1
PAGE I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.
SLENDER How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say hewas outrun on Cotsall.
PAGE It could not be judged, sir.
SLENDER You'll not confess, you'll not confess.
SHALLOW That he will not. 'Tis your fault, 'tis your fault;'tis a good dog.
PAGE A cur, sir.
SHALLOW Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog: can there be more said? he is good and fair. Is Sir JohnFalstaff here?
KING HENRY IV
Act 1, Scene 3
HOTSPUR You say true: Why, what a candy deal of courtesy This fawning greyhound then did proffer me! Look,'when his infant fortune came to age, 'And 'gentleHarry Percy,' and 'kind cousin; 'O, the devil take such cozeners! God forgive me! Good uncle, tell your tale; I have done.
KING HENRY IV
Act 2, Scene 4
FALSTAFF He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i'faith; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound: he'll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance. Call him up, drawer.
KING HENRY VI
Act 2, Scene 5
QUEEN MARGARET Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain: Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds Having the fearful flying hare in sight, With fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath, And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands, Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.
KING HENRY V
Act 3, Scene 1
KING HENRY V... And you, good yeoman,Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture; let us swear That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not; For there is none of you so mean and base, That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.I see you stand like greyhounds the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
MACBETH
FIRST MURDERER We are men, my liege.
MACBETH Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves, are clept All by the name of dogs: the valued file Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,The housekeeper, the hunter, every one According to the gift which bounteous natureHath in him closed; whereby he does receive Particular addition. from the bill That writes them all alike: and so of men...
CORIOLANUS
Act 1, Scene 6
MARCIUS As with a man busied about decrees: Condemning some to death, and some to exile; Ransoming him, or pitying, threatening the other; Holding Corioli in the name of Rome, Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash,To let him slip at will.
TIMON OF ATHENS
Act 1, Scene 2
THIRD SERVANT Please you, my lord, that honourablegentleman, Lord Lucullus, entreats your companyto-morrow to hunt with him, and has sent your honourtwo brace of greyhounds.
TIMON I'll hunt with him; and let them be received,


A SNAKE

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.


He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.

The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?
Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?
Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
/If you were not afraid, you would kill him/!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness<