Shakespeare

Sonnet 057: Being Your Slave, What Should I Do But Tend

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of naught
Save where you are, how happy you make those.
    So true a fool is love that in your will,
    Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

Dylan Thomas

Among Those Killed In The Dawn Raid Was A Man Aged A Hundred

When the morning was waking over the war
He put on his clothes and stepped out and he died,
The locks yawned loose and a blast blew them wide,
He dropped where he loved on the burst pavement stone
And the funeral grains of the slaughtered floor.
Tell his street on its back he stopped a sun
And the craters of his eyes grew springshots and fire
When all the keys shot from the locks, and rang.
Dig no more for the chains of his grey-haired heart.
The heavenly ambulance drawn by a wound
Assembling waits for the spade's ring on the cage.
O keep his bones away from the common cart,
The morning is flying on the wings of his age
And a hundred storks perch on the sun's right hand.

VICTOR HUGO

The Grave and The Rose

The Grave said to the Rose,
"What of the dews of dawn,
Love's flower, what end is theirs?"
"And what of spirits flown,
The souls whereon doth close
The tomb's mouth unawares?"
The Rose said to the Grave.

The Rose said, "In the shade
From the dawn's tears is made
A perfume faint and strange,
Amber and honey sweet."
"And all the spirits fleet
Do suffer a sky-change,
More strangely than the dew,
To God's own angels new,"
The Grave said to the Rose.

Rimbaud

A Season in Hell

Arthur Rimbaud, 1854 - 1891

A while back, if I remember right, my life was one long party where all hearts were open wide, where all wines kept flowing.
One night, I sat Beauty down on my lap.—And I found her galling.—And I roughed her up.
I armed myself against justice.
I ran away. O witches, O misery, O hatred, my treasure’s been turned over to you!
I managed to make every trace of human hope vanish from my mind. I pounced on every joy like a ferocious animal eager to strangle it.
I called for executioners so that, while dying, I could bite the butts of their rifles. I called for plagues to choke me with sand, with blood. Bad luck was my god. I stretched out in the muck. I dried myself in the air of crime. And I played tricks on insanity.
And Spring brought me the frightening laugh of the idiot.
So, just recently, when I found myself on the brink of the final squawk! it dawned on me to look again for the key to that ancient party where I might find my appetite once more.
Charity is that key.—This inspiration proves I was dreaming!
“You’ll always be a hyena etc. . . ," yells the devil, who’d crowned me with such pretty poppies. “Deserve death with all your appetites, your selfishness, and all the capital sins!”
Ah! I’ve been through too much:-But, sweet Satan, I beg of you, a less blazing eye! and while waiting for the new little cowardly gestures yet to come, since you like an absence of descriptive or didactic skills in a writer, let me rip out these few ghastly pages from my notebook of the damned.

Francois Villon-ballade

             

 

 

I die of thirst beside the fountain 
I’m hot as fire, I’m shaking tooth on tooth 
In my own country I’m in a distant land 
Beside the blaze I’m shivering in flames 
Naked as a worm, dressed like a president 
I laugh in tears and hope in despair 
I cheer up in sad hopelessness 
I’m joyful and no pleasure’s anywhere 
I’m powerful and lack all force and strength 
Warmly welcomed, always turned away.

I’m sure of nothing but what is uncertain 
Find nothing obscure but the obvious 
Doubt nothing but the certainties 
Knowledge to me is mere accident
I keep winning and remain the loser 
At dawn I say “I bid you good night”
Lying down I’m afraid of falling 
I’m so rich I haven’t a penny 
I await an inheritance and am no one’s heir 
Warmly welcomed, always turned away.

I never work and yet I labor 
To acquire goods I don’t even want 
Kind words irritate me most 
He who speaks true deceives me worst 
A friend is someone who makes me think 
A white swan is a black crow 
The people who harm me think they help 
Lies and truth today I see they’re one
I remember everything, my mind’s a blank 
Warmly welcomed, always turned away.

Merciful Prince may it please you to know 
I understand much and have no wit or learning 
I’m biased against all laws impartially 
What’s next to do? Redeem my pawned goods again! 
Warmly welcomed, always turned away.

Monochrome World

Dressed in black,
What can you lack
in a monochrome world?
Your eyes weep glass
As your lovers pass
What you remember you dread
Inside your throbbing head!

I did some proofreading and web design work recently for an education agency run by two Bangladeshi gentlemen. Both claim to have MBAs but cannot write English properly. Perhaps it is not unusual anymore? Nevertheless, they are recruiting for PHDs, which they refer to as a commodity not a distinguished level in education. The universities are their list are Sunderland and BPP. The latter is a private uni with an apparently loose regard for academia.

None of the students they recruit are able to do PHDS.

A SIDE TIME IN BRITISH EDUCATION

Political correctness gone wild. These two, like numerous others I can name, are protected by their ethnicity.