Humid seal of soft affections,
Tend'rest pledge of future bliss,
Dearest tie of young connections,
Love's first snow-drop, virgin kiss.
Speaking silence, dumb confession,
Passion's birth, and infants' play,
Dove-like fondness, chaste concession,
Glowing dawn of brighter day.
Sorrowing joy, adieu's last action,
Ling'ring lips, – no more to join!
What words can ever speak affection
Thrilling and sincere as thine!
-- Robert Burns
She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.
-- Robert Graves
O you tender ones, walk now and then
into the breath that blows coldly past.
Upon your cheeks let it tremble and part;
behind you it will tremble together again.
O you blessed ones, you who are whole,
you who seem the beginning of hearts,
bows for the arrows and arrows' targets–
tear-bright, your lips more eternally smile.
Don't be afraid to suffer; return
that heaviness to the earth's own weight;
heavy are the mountains, heavy are the seas.
Even the small trees you planted as children
have long since become too heavy; you could not
carry them now. But the winds . . . But the spaces . . .
-- Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Sonnets to Orpheus
Tr. Stephen Mitchell
A true noun, an isolated thing, does not exist in nature. Things are only the terminal points, or rather the meeting points, of actions, cross-sections cut through actions, snapshots. Neither can a pure verb, an abstract motion, be possible in nature. The eye sees noun and verb as one : things in motion, motion in things . . .
-- Ernest Fenollosa The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry
Ed. Ezra Pound
The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry (link)
