Prayer

Great God, I ask for no meaner pelf
Than that I may not disappoint myself,
That in my action I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye.

And next in value, which thy kindness lends,
That I may greatly disappoint my friends,
Howe'er they think or hope that it may be,
They may not dream how thou'st distinguished me.

That my weak hand may equal my firm faith
And my life practice what my tongue saith
That my low conduct may not show
Nor my relenting lines
That I thy purpose did not know
Or overrated thy designs.

--Henry David Thoreau

Life's well

He's very artfully conveyed this point:

I cannot trust their seeming, but must ask what eyes would meet me
Could I look in sudden silence at the secrets of the heart!

I've been disappointed in people, I've been disappointed in myself, when seeing what they and I are capable of and what we are, in actuality. It can be quite innocence- and ideal-shattering.

Somebody told me that I may look young ("19?", most recently), but that my eyes (presumably when I'm being serious) say I've been through a lot. My eyes haven't always said that and I think it's the result of the kind of thing he expresses in this poem. He stops at the point of disenchantment, so you don't know if he ever moved on, but that leaves it open to one's own conclusions...

Once you've been disillusioned, I think you have to choose to not let it show in your eyes. I don't think that's actually humanly possible and when the disappointment is deep, it can even take 3 years to work through it, maybe almost a lifetime for some deals. That reality doesn't inspire me. :D But knowing that I can choose not to get stuck in the sentiment of the last verse of this poem makes me feel like I can be a little more noble than nature might direct, haha.

I just realized I don't read poetry out loud and I wonder if half the effect of it is lost when you only hear it in your head.

I should try "out loud"...

Okay, I just did.--And now I know why I don't read it out loud: words work better for me when they're in my head. :)

The Well's Secret
John Boyle O'Reilly

I knew it all my boyhood: in a lonesome valley meadow,
Like a dryad's mirror hidden by the wood's dim arches near;
Its eye flashed back the sunshine, and grew dark and sad with shadow;
And I loved its truthful depths where every pebble lay so clear.

I scooped my hand and drank it, and watched the sensate quiver
Of the rippling rings of silver as the beads of crystal fell;
I pressed the richer grasses from its little trickling river,
Till at last I knew, as friends know, every secret of the well.

But one day I stood beside it on a sudden, unexpected,
When the sun had crossed the valley and a shadow hid the place;
And I looked in the dark water—saw my pallid cheek reflected—
And beside it, looking upward, met an evil reptile face:

Looking upward, furtive, startled at the silent, swift intrusion;
Then it darted toward the grasses, and I saw not where it fled;
But I knew its eyes were on me, and the old-time sweet illusion
Of the pure and perfect symbol I had cherished there was dead.

O, the pain to know the perjury of seeming truth that blesses!
My soul was seared like sin to see the falsehood of the place;
And the innocence that mocked me, while in dim unseen recesses
There were lurking fouler secrets than the furtive reptile face.

And since then,—O, why the burden?—when the joyous faces greet me,
With their eyes of limpid innocence, and words devoid of art,
I cannot trust their seeming, but must ask what eyes would meet me
Could I look in sudden silence at the secrets of the heart!

We like the moon, ladida

The Moon of Your Love
Muhammad Shirin Maghribi (1349 - 1406)
English version by David & Sabrineh Fideler

Not a single soul lacks
a pathway to you.

There's no stone,
no flower --
not a single piece of straw --
lacking your existence.

In every particle of the world,
the moon of your love
causes the heart
of each atom to glow.

Today's poetry reading

Well, I just knew I wasn't the only one out there resonatin'. :)

The Love of God, Unutterable and Perfect
Dante Alighieri (1265? - 1321)
English version by Stephen Mitchell

The love of God, unutterable and perfect,
flows into a pure soul the way that light
rushes into a transparent object.

The more love that it finds, the more it gives
itself; so that, as we grow clear and open,
the more complete the joy of heaven is.

And the more souls who resonate together,
the greater the intensity of their love,
and, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other.

Bai Jyui: My New Gown

I use good cloth as white as snow
for a new gown; inside is sewn
padding soft as the clouds; the cloth
is heavy, padding thick, and I
am warm all day; at night, throwing it
over my quilt, I sleep
through until morning; who would
think that in the eleventh
and twelfth month of the year, I could
be as warm as if it were springtime?
When I awake at midnight,
suddenly a thought comes to me;
feeling the gown with one hand,
I stride to and fro; a hero ought
to try and help the needy;
how can it be that I
exhaust myself looking
after just one person? I
wonder how I can make a piece
of padded cloth ten thousand feet long
to clothe all the people from one horizon
to the other; everyone will be as warm
as I am today, and not a soul anywhere
will die of cold.

Bai Juyi: The Good Rain

The land and the people both suffer
in the drought; farmers
wonder how they will
till the fields; everyone
thinks of the things dearest
to them; I worry about
my pines and bamboos, both
looking so dry and dead;
each day I am anxious about
them, servants water their leaves
and irrigate their roots;
then a dark cloud rises
from the east and
a refreshing rain falls,
as refreshing as washing the dust from your
face or shampooing your hair; trees
flash their green twigs
in welcome, I tell the people
their ten days' watering
is no match for one good
rain; now, too, I understand --
officials, tree planters
and gardeners are all the same; when
cultivating clean, decent hearts,
they create goodness all around them.

Bai Juyi

Picked up a "200 selected poems" book. I may have said it before... but I'm so much more willing to plunk down my tiny dineronds (was it only me and my sibblings -- thank you, Cris, you inventor of all things that seem to stick around -- who called'em that? ehe) on books than clothing. I'll think and think and think about a piece of clothing I actually really need and then not end up spending on it, but then a book, or two or three, will show up and they just need me and I promptly snap them up and stack them on my shelf, to receive attention at a time when I have time to give attention. Which never happens. My one consolation is that they're pretty upstanding selections, if I may say so myself. :) If one judges a person by the books they INTEND to read, I'll be pretty well-judged, hahaha. Hrm...

Anyway!

A couple of this fellow's poems -- Bai Juyi, translated by Rewi Alley -- jumped out at me. They're really quite interesting, especially being in this (Chinese-ish) part of the world... In the ones I've chosen, I so like his depiction of life in China -- it helps me get and understand some things -- and then I particularly like his conclusions in these ones.

So some Bai Juyi, forthcoming...