Come To Me, O Christ - Paramahansa Yogananda

O Christ—Thou rarest flower of hearts—Thou didst sail on the storm-tossed lake of prejudiced minds. Its evil-scented, gloomy thought-waves lashed Thy lily-tender soul. They crucified Thee with their evil. Yet Thou didst shed the aroma of goodness and forgiveness, and didst help them to be purified by remorse, so helping them to become attractively sweet-scented with Thine all-loving Flower-Soul.

The road nonpareil - Nicolae Sirius

The only road I knew without fail was your heart.
I knew it better than the dream in the hymn
Praising spring. Better than homesickness
And despondence, or the wind recapping the psalms
Of movement through fragrant valleys
Joined to restless water-courses.

This country nurtured hope - Godfrey Mutiso Gorry

This country nurtured hope decayed,
The politician cruises on a 4WD guzzler,
The thief.
Feeling the base of his belly.

Phaedra, Act V Scene 6 (lines 11-83) - Jean Racine

Scarcely had we emerged from Troezen’s gate:
He drove his chariot, and his soldiery
Were ranged about him, mute and grave as he.
Brooding, he headed toward Mycenae. Lax
In his hands, the reins lay on his horses' backs.
His haughty chargers, quick once to obey
His voice, and give their noble spirits play,
Now, with hung head and mournful eye, seemed part
Of the sad thoughts that filled their master's heart.

Elegy in stone - Marcelo Ensema Nsang

I speak to you of my destiny when I die,
one afternoon, beside the virgin fountain,
at the edge
of my final memory.

Clara d'Ellébeuse - Francis Jammes

Down the years it’s Clara d’Ellébeuse
I love, who went to old-time boarding schools
and came, warm evenings, under linden trees
to read her magazines of other days.

The Ant Explorer - Clarence James Dennis

Once a little sugar ant made up his mind to roam —
To fare away far away, far away from home.

Pentecost - Annette Freün von Droste-Hülshoff

The day was still, the sun's bright glare
Fell sheer upon the Temple's beauteous wall
Withered by tropic heat, the air
Let, like a bird, its listless pinions fall.
Behold a group, young men and gray,
And women, kneeling; silence holds them all;
They mutely pray!

The City - Eeva-Liisa Manner

How the houses have grown in this city,
the chasms deepened, the water become blacker,

Silken shoes - Jens Peter Jacobsen

Silken shoes upon golden lasts!
I’ve won a maiden fair!
The fairest maiden waits for me!

Vondel's Lucifer (Act I, lines 51-95) - Joost van den Vondel

Apollion:
I'll pass my journey thither by nor tell
How downward sweeping through nine spheres I sped.
That swift as arrows round their centre whirl.

I Loved You - Aleksandr Pushkin

I loved you; and perhaps I love you still,
The flame, perhaps, is not extinguished; yet
It burns so quietly within my soul,
No longer should you feel distressed by it.

XIV - Nahuatl indian (anonymous)

Only the tzinitzcan is in power, the tzinitzcan arouses me in my affliction, letting fall its songs like sad flowers.

A Silent Mouth - Cathal O’Byrne

O little green leaf on the bough, you hear
       the lark in the morn,
You hear the grey feet of the wind stir in
       the shimmering corn,
You hear low down in the grass
‘The singing Shee as they pass;
Do you ever hear, O little green flame! -
My loved one calling, calling, whispering
       my name?

We remember him - Anonymous

When we are weary and in need of strength,
When we are lost and sick at heart,
We remember him.

Voices are heard - Rafael Felipe Oteriño

Like rolling rings,
or drops of honey, or mirrors,
or teeth unearthed
by raging water
they've begun to rise.

Far Within Us #1 - Vasko Popa

We raise our arms
The street climbs into the sky
We lower our eyes
The roofs go down into the earth

Pigtail - Tadeusz Różewicz

When all the women in the transport

had their heads shaved

four workmen with brooms made of birch twigs

swept up

and gathered up the hair

Behind clean glass

the stiff hair lies

of those suffocated in gas chambers

there are pins and side combs

in this hair

The hair is not shot through with light

is not parted by the breeze

is not touched by any hand

or rain or lips

In huge chests

clouds of dry hair

of those suffocated

and a faded plait

a pigtail with a ribbon

pulled at school

by naughty boys.

---

Tadeusz Różewicz (1921 - 2014) Poland

Translated by Adam Czerniawski

Source: POETRY PAGE OF PGR

A Damascene Moon - Nizar Qabbani

Green Tunisia, I have come to you as a lover
On my brow, a rose and a book
For I am the Damascene whose profession is passion

Sonnet LXXII. A Prayer for Aid - Michelangelo Buonarroti

Oh, make me see Thee, Lord, where'er I go!
      If mortal beauty sets my soul on fire,
      That flame when near to Thine must needs expire,
      And I with love of only Thee shall glow.

Lament I - Jan Kochanowski

Come, Heraclitus and Simonides,
Come with your weeping and sad elegies:
Ye griefs and sorrows, come from all the lands
Wherein ye sigh and wail and wring your hands:

For Tony Benn - Julian Dobson

It's not your pipe or plummy voice
nor your posh-boy turned working class
mutation that I celebrate.

Elysium - Friedrich von Schiller

Past the despairing wail
And the bright banquets of the Elysian vale
Melt every care away!

Outside History - Eavan Boland

These are outsiders, always. These stars—
these iron inklings of an Irish January,
whose light happened
thousands of years before

To See Him Again - Gabriela Mistral

Never, never again?
Not on nights filled with quivering stars,
or during dawn's maiden brightness
or afternoons of sacrifice?

Sonnet XXX - Fernando Pessoa

I do not know what truth the false untruth
Of this sad sense of the seen world may own,

Through Foulest Fogs - Bysshe Vanolis

Through foulest fogs of my own sluggish soul,
Through midnight glooms of all the wide world's guilt,
Through sulphurous cannon-clouds that surge and roll
Above the steam of blood in anger spilt;

Stay - Ingeborg Bachmann

Now the journey is ending,
the wind is losing heart.
Into your hands it's falling,
a rickety house of cards.