Venice masks

Tuesday 31 March 2020

Monday 30 March 2020

After a long hard decade, Miranda asks for a poem about feijoas - Emma Neale

Small hard green breasts budding on a young tree
that doesn’t want them, can’t think how to dance
if it has to put up with these;

Sunday 29 March 2020

Aures Ad Nostras Deitatis Preces - Anon

God, of thy pity, unto us thy children
Bend down thine ear in thine own lovingkindness,
And all thy people's prayers and vows ascending
Hear, we beseech thee.

Saturday 28 March 2020

Ghazel - Nesimi

Yea, every dulcet speech o’ thine is e’en a pearl of lustrous ray;
Both sun and moon are moths that round thy Face’s taper flit and play.

Friday 27 March 2020

Evening - Jeppe Aakjær

        Still, my heart, now sets the sun,
While the moor is resting,
        Herds now homeward are begun,
And the stork is nesting.
        Still, my heart, now sets the sun.

Thursday 26 March 2020

Wednesday 25 March 2020

Woman - Kazi Nazrul Islam

I sing the song
of equality;
In my view gender difference
is essentially a triviality.
Everything that is great in the world,
all the works, beneficial and good,
half must be credited to woman,
and to man half only we should.

Tuesday 24 March 2020

Autumn Evening - Viggo Stuckenberg

A tower stands by the edge of a wood, an old weathered tower with moss and creepers growing across the peepholes, with green moss in the cracks and corners, and withered woodbine hanging like stiff, dry hair down over the red stone. High up on the east side is the only window in the crumbling walls.

Monday 23 March 2020

Would I were free as are my dreams - August von Platen-Hallermünde

Would I were free as are my dreams,
  Sequestered from the garish crowd
To glide by banks of quiet streams
  Cooled by the shadow-drifting cloud!

Sunday 22 March 2020

Golden light, serene and bright - N. F. S. Grundtvig

Golden light, serene and bright,
The sky is now adorning;
As sleeping child in mother's arm,
My God has shielded me from harm;
I thank him for the morning.

Saturday 21 March 2020

Saving A Train - William Topaz McGonagall

'Twas in the year of 1869, and on the 19th of November,
Which the people in Southern Germany will long remember,
The great rain-storm which for twenty hours did pour down,
That the rivers were overflowed and petty streams all around.

Friday 20 March 2020

I am the City's Child - Anton Wildgans

I am the City's child. The others frown
and poke their nose at children from the town:
they say we have no home where we belong.
It's true, no forest whispered in our prattle
and all we heard was flagstones rattle -
and yet, beloved city, you're my song.

Thursday 19 March 2020

On Justice and Governing (III) - Saadi Shirazi

There lived a king, I’ve heard, for justice famed,
Who wore a dress of coarse material framed;
“Illustrious king! this robe (a courtier said)
Doth not beseem thee, wear a rich brocade”;

Wednesday 18 March 2020

Angst - Emil Aarestrup

Hold tighter round me
With your round arms;
Hold on, while your heart
Still has blood and warmth.

Tuesday 17 March 2020

The Sleep-walker - Maurice Rollinat

With his hat on his head and his cane in his hand,
A black morning-coat hugging his stiff bony frame,
He strode this way and that on the edge of the roof
Like an automaton, superhumanly spry.

Monday 16 March 2020

In Silence - Kamini Roy

Like a fortress sadness filled
Not even washed away by the tireless flow of tear drops
How much pain resides in the dense hard snow
That can never be melted by tears

Sunday 15 March 2020

The Life to come - Rāmprasād Sen

Think awhile, Brothers, of what will be after death.
This is the question that all debate

Saturday 14 March 2020

Father’s Dark Ship (after Hesiod) - Kris Hemensley

Dear brother
                    I can’t sing you a song
about the ways of the world just now

Friday 13 March 2020

Vanity - Daniel Naborowski

The world adheres to vanity,
And craves all earthly property.

Thursday 12 March 2020

Knowledge should mean a full grasp of knowledge - Yunus Emre

Knowledge should mean a full grasp of knowledge
Knowledge means to know yourself, heart and soul.
If you have failed to understand yourself,
Then all of your reading has missed its call.

Tuesday 10 March 2020

Colour - John Blight

What need to paint a world for this keen man?
Who, blind now, knows its oceans in such words
As “sounding,” “leagues and leagues” and "seagulls”;

Monday 9 March 2020

Beowulf (lines 1-52) - Anonymous

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.

Sunday 8 March 2020

Vondel's Lucifer (Act II, lines 35-76) - Joost van den Vondel

Belzebub:
O! Stadtholder of God's superior Powers,
Alas! we hear too well, amid the praise
Of choristers, a discord that makes sad
The feast eterne. The charge of Gabriel
Is clear. It needs no tongue of Cherubim
To unfold its sense. Nor was there need to send
Apollion below, a nearer view
To gain of Adam's realm beneath the moon.

Saturday 7 March 2020

The Abode of Peace - Arif Khudairi

At dawn
walking alone
in the street
as Bandar
Seri Begawan
was asleep

Friday 6 March 2020

The vineyard - Dritëro Agolli

The rows of crates are lined up in the vineyard,
Crates where raki and exquisite wines lie sleeping,

Thursday 5 March 2020

Today I became a man - James Julius Catalyn

Today I became a man.
I experienced the realisation
Of a setting
Of mind, body and soul.

Wednesday 4 March 2020

Second raid on the Turkmān Hazāras - Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur

They saw the blackness of the foe;
Stood idle-handed and amazed
I arriving, went swift that way,
Pressed on with shout, "Move on! move on!"
I wanted to hurry my men on,
To make them stand up to the foe.

Tuesday 3 March 2020

Norwegian love song - Peter Andreas Heiberg

The bright red sun in ocean slept;
Beneath a pine-tree Gunild wept,
And ey'd the hills with silver crown'd,
And listen'd to each little sound
That stirr'd on high.

Monday 2 March 2020

Infancy - Jens Baggesen

The»e was a time, and I recal it well,
When my whole frame was but an ell in height;
Oh! when I think of that, my warm tears swell,
And therefore in the memory I delight.

Sunday 1 March 2020

Show me the way - Nnorom Azuonye

Dazed and lost in the maze of a frightening life
I grope in its dark paths like a blind man thrown
into a crowded marketplace of searing strife
ablaze with discordant voices of sorrowing men.