English: Classics here!!

[Tilmeez]

Planning this thread to be a reference point for English learners. Your active participation is requested. I will keep searching and posting the master pieces from English that can enhance understanding of English.
Please do not post your comment directly as POST. For any poster you can give reps and convey your comments there. This way every post will be a piece of English literature!

Here is the first one.

Lincoln’s Letter to his Son’s Teacher

He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just, all men are not true.
But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish Politician, there is a dedicated leader…

Teach him for every enemy there is a friend, Steer him away from envy, if you can, teach him the secret of quiet laughter.

Let him learn early that the bullies are the easiest to lick… Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books… But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and the flowers on a green hillside.

In the school teach him it is far honourable to fail than to cheat… Teach him to have faith
in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him they are wrong…

Teach him to be gentle with gentle people, and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is getting on the band wagon… Teach him to listen to all men… but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth, and take only the good that comes through.

Teach him if you can, how to laugh when he is sad… Teach him there is no shame in tears, Teach him to scoff at cynics and to beware of too much sweetness… Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidders but never to put a price-tag on his heart and soul.

Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob and to stand and fight if he thinks he’s right. Treat him gently, but do not cuddle him, because only the test of fire makes fine steel.

Let him have the courage to be impatient… let him have the patience to be brave.
Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will have sublime faith in mankind.

This is a big order, but see what you can do…
He is such a fine little fellow, my son!

~ Abraham Lincoln

[Tilmeez]

A Poison Tree

By William Blake

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears

Night and morning with my tears,

And I sunned it with smiles

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright,

And my foe beheld it shine,

and he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole;

In the morning, glad, I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

[Tilmeez]

Shooting an Elephant

by George Orwell
In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people--the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans.
All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoretically--and secretly, of course--I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos--all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.
One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism--the real motives for which despotic governments act. Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old .44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem. Various Burmans stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant's doings. It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone "must." It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their attack of "must" is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours' journey away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town. The Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it. It had already destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon it.
The Burmese sub-inspector and some Indian constables were waiting for me in the quarter where the elephant had been seen. It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palmleaf, winding all over a steep hillside. I remember that it was a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains. We began questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone and, as usual, failed to get any definite information. That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes. Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one direction, some said that he had gone in another, some professed not even to have heard of any elephant. I had almost made up my mind that the whole story was a pack of lies, when we heard yells a little distance away. There was a loud, scandalized cry of "Go away, child! Go away this instant!" and an old woman with a switch in her hand came round the corner of a hut, violently shooing away a crowd of naked children. Some more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming; evidently there was something that the children ought not to have seen. I rounded the hut and saw a man's dead body sprawling in the mud. He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost naked, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth. This was the rainy season and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of yards long. He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony. (Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.) The friction of the great beast's foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit. As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friend's house nearby to borrow an elephant rifle. I had already sent back the pony, not wanting it to go mad with fright and throw me if it smelt the elephant.
The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges, and meanwhile some Burmans had arrived and told us that the elephant was in the paddy fields below, only a few hundred yards away. As I started forward practically the whole population of the quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me. They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant. They had not shown much interest in the elephant when he was merely ravaging their homes, but it was different now that he was going to be shot. It was a bit of fun to them, as it would be to an English crowd; besides they wanted the meat. It made me vaguely uneasy. I had no intention of shooting the elephant--I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary--and it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you. I marched down the hill, looking and feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growing army of people jostling at my heels. At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a metalled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across, not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains and dotted with coarse grass. The elephant was standing eight yards from the road, his left side towards us. He took not the slightest notice of the crowd's approach. He was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against his knees to clean them and stuffing them into his mouth.
I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant--it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery--and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that his attack of "must" was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home.
But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd--seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing--no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.
But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large animal.) Besides, there was the beast's owner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds, possibly. But I had got to act quickly. I turned to some experienced-looking Burmans who had been there when we arrived, and asked them how the elephant had been behaving. They all said the same thing: he took no notice of you if you left him alone, but he might charge if you went too close to him.
It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that I was going to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and the ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.
There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim. The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats. They were going to have their bit of fun after all. The rifle was a beautiful German thing with cross-hair sights. I did not then know that in shooting an elephant one would shoot to cut an imaginary bar running from ear-hole to ear-hole. I ought, therefore, as the elephant was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole, actually I aimed several inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward.
When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick--one never does when a shot goes home--but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frighfful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time--it might have been five seconds, I dare say--he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.
I got up. The Burmans were already racing past me across the mud. It was obvious that the elephant would never rise again, but he was not dead. He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open--I could see far down into caverns of pale pink throat. I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken. Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further. I felt that I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast Lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him. I sent back for my small rifle and poured shot after shot into his heart and down his throat. They seemed to make no impression. The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock.
In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heard later that it took him half an hour to die. Burmans were bringing dahs and baskets even before I left, and I was told they had stripped his body almost to the bones by the afternoon.
Afterwards, of course, there were endless discussions about the shooting of the elephant. The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing. Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a mad dog, if its owner fails to control it. Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a **** shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any **** Coringhee coolie. And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

[shible]

Assalamu alaikkum(warah)

Hey Bro i hope to post some under this thread. Is it Ok?

[shible]

Intervention



Interventions
I have come to this place
For reasons mysterious
And unknown to me
Yet it seems that chance events
And freak accidents
Constitute the most life changing
Turning points.


In the fortuitous,
Prayers are answered
And in randomness,
The Almighty
Is made manifest.
And in the smallest details
Of the unpredictable
One finds traces
Of the handiwork of God.

[Tilmeez]

IT'S THE JOURNEY THAT'S IMPORTANT...
By John McLeod

Life, sometimes so wearying
Is worth its weight in gold
The experience of traveling
Lends a wisdom that is old
Beyond our 'living memory'
A softly spoken prayer:
"It's the journey that's important,
Not the getting there!"

Ins and outs and ups and downs
Life's road meanders aimlessly?
Or so it seems, but somehow
Leads us where we need to be,
And being simply human
We oft question and compare....
"Is the journey so important
Or the getting there?"

And thus it's always been
That question pondered down the ages
By simple men with simple ways
To wise and ancient sages....
How sweet then, quietly knowing
Reaching destination fair:
"It's the journey that's important,
Not the getting there!"

[shible]

Yesterday’s Tomorrow



I often remember a conversation
from long ago and recall
the lines quoted to me
from Eliot’s Four Quartets:
“Time present and time past
are both perhaps present in time future,
and time future contained in time past.”
In thoughtful recital
from the wrinkled and dog-eared pages of the past,
that somehow has stayed with me,
strangely coming to mind
at the most critical junctions in my life,
and it seems to me now,
that our words carried more meaning
than we were aware of at the time,
just as prophecies
only gain recognition
in their realization and
magic in their manifestation.


Perhaps too, their staying with me
into the muddled forgetfulness of my maturity
somehow proves their point,
that time does not progress in the neatness
of linear correctness,
but in crazy tautologies
and odd backward eddies,
for I remember the Eliot quote
and sometimes I even recall
from that conversation long ago,
the Shakespeare lines that followed,
spoken like an actor,
full of strut and sound and fury:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”

[Tilmeez]

THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE
By Oscar Wilde


"She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,"
cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red
rose."

From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, and
she looked out through the leaves, and wondered.

"No red rose in all my garden!" he cried, and his beautiful eyes
filled with tears. "Ah, on what little things does happiness
depend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and all
the secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is
my life made wretched."

"Here at last is a true lover," said the Nightingale. "Night after
night have I sung of him, though I knew him not: night after night
have I told his story to the stars, and now I see him. His hair is
dark as the hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of
his desire; but passion has made his face like pale ivory, and
sorrow has set her seal upon his brow."

"The Prince gives a ball to-morrow night," murmured the young
Student, "and my love will be of the company. If I bring her a red
rose she will dance with me till dawn. If I bring her a red rose,
I shall hold her in my arms, and she will lean her head upon my
shoulder, and her hand will be clasped in mine. But there is no
red rose in my garden, so I shall sit lonely, and she will pass me
by. She will have no heed of me, and my heart will break."

"Here indeed is the true lover," said the Nightingale. "What I
sing of, he suffers--what is joy to me, to him is pain. Surely
Love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and
dearer than fine opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor
is it set forth in the marketplace. It may not be purchased of the
merchants, nor can it be weighed out in the balance for gold."

"The musicians will sit in their gallery," said the young Student,
"and play upon their stringed instruments, and my love will dance
to the sound of the harp and the violin. She will dance so lightly
that her feet will not touch the floor, and the courtiers in their
gay dresses will throng round her. But with me she will not dance,
for I have no red rose to give her"; and he flung himself down on
the grass, and buried his face in his hands, and wept.

"Why is he weeping?" asked a little Green Lizard, as he ran past
him with his tail in the air.

"Why, indeed?" said a Butterfly, who was fluttering about after a
sunbeam.

"Why, indeed?" whispered a Daisy to his neighbour, in a soft, low
voice.

"He is weeping for a red rose," said the Nightingale.

"For a red rose?" they cried; "how very ridiculous!" and the little
Lizard, who was something of a cynic, laughed outright.

But the Nightingale understood the secret of the Student's sorrow,
and she sat silent in the oak-tree, and thought about the mystery
of Love.

Suddenly she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the
air. She passed through the grove like a shadow, and like a shadow
she sailed across the garden.

In the centre of the grass-plot was standing a beautiful Rose-tree,
and when she saw it she flew over to it, and lit upon a spray.

"Give me a red rose," she cried, "and I will sing you my sweetest
song."

But the Tree shook its head.

"My roses are white," it answered; "as white as the foam of the
sea, and whiter than the snow upon the mountain. But go to my
brother who grows round the old sun-dial, and perhaps he will give
you what you want."

So the Nightingale flew over to the Rose-tree that was growing
round the old sun-dial.

"Give me a red rose," she cried, "and I will sing you my sweetest
song."

But the Tree shook its head.

"My roses are yellow," it answered; "as yellow as the hair of the
mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and yellower than the
daffodil that blooms in the meadow before the mower comes with his
scythe. But go to my brother who grows beneath the Student's
window, and perhaps he will give you what you want."

So the Nightingale flew over to the Rose-tree that was growing
beneath the Student's window.

"Give me a red rose," she cried, "and I will sing you my sweetest
song."

But the Tree shook its head.

"My roses are red," it answered, "as red as the feet of the dove,
and redder than the great fans of coral that wave and wave in the
ocean-cavern. But the winter has chilled my veins, and the frost
has nipped my buds, and the storm has broken my branches, and I
shall have no roses at all this year."

"One red rose is all I want," cried the Nightingale, "only one red
rose! Is there no way by which I can get it?"

"There is away," answered the Tree; "but it is so terrible that I
dare not tell it to you."

"Tell it to me," said the Nightingale, "I am not afraid."

"If you want a red rose," said the Tree, "you must build it out of
music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart's-blood. You
must sing to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long
you must sing to me, and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your
life-blood must flow into my veins, and become mine."

"Death is a great price to pay for a red rose," cried the
Nightingale, "and Life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit
in the green wood, and to watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and
the Moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent of the
hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and
the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love is better than Life,
and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?"

So she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air.
She swept over the garden like a shadow, and like a shadow she
sailed through the grove.

The young Student was still lying on the grass, where she had left
him, and the tears were not yet dry in his beautiful eyes.

"Be happy," cried the Nightingale, "be happy; you shall have your
red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it
with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that
you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though
she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty. Flame-
coloured are his wings, and coloured like flame is his body. His
lips are sweet as honey, and his breath is like frankincense."

The Student looked up from the grass, and listened, but he could
not understand what the Nightingale was saying to him, for he only
knew the things that are written down in books.

But the Oak-tree understood, and felt sad, for he was very fond of
the little Nightingale who had built her nest in his branches.

"Sing me one last song," he whispered; "I shall feel very lonely
when you are gone."

So the Nightingale sang to the Oak-tree, and her voice was like
water bubbling from a silver jar.

When she had finished her song the Student got up, and pulled a
note-book and a lead-pencil out of his pocket.

"She has form," he said to himself, as he walked away through the
grove--"that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I
am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all
style, without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for
others. She thinks merely of music, and everybody knows that the
arts are selfish. Still, it must be admitted that she has some
beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not
mean anything, or do any practical good." And he went into his
room, and lay down on his little pallet-bed, and began to think of
his love; and, after a time, he fell asleep.

And when the Moon shone in the heavens the Nightingale flew to the
Rose-tree, and set her breast against the thorn. All night long
she sang with her breast against the thorn, and the cold crystal
Moon leaned down and listened. All night long she sang, and the
thorn went deeper and deeper into her breast, and her life-blood
ebbed away from her.

She sang first of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and a
girl. And on the top-most spray of the Rose-tree there blossomed a
marvellous rose, petal following petal, as song followed song.
Pale was it, at first, as the mist that hangs over the river--pale
as the feet of the morning, and silver as the wings of the dawn.
As the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, as the shadow of a
rose in a water-pool, so was the rose that blossomed on the topmost
spray of the Tree.

But the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the
thorn. "Press closer, little Nightingale," cried the Tree, "or the
Day will come before the rose is finished."

So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and louder and
louder grew her song, for she sang of the birth of passion in the
soul of a man and a maid.

And a delicate flush of pink came into the leaves of the rose, like
the flush in the face of the bridegroom when he kisses the lips of
the bride. But the thorn had not yet reached her heart, so the
rose's heart remained white, for only a Nightingale's heart's-blood
can crimson the heart of a rose.

And the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the
thorn. "Press closer, little Nightingale," cried the Tree, "or the
Day will come before the rose is finished."

So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn
touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her.
Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song,
for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love
that dies not in the tomb.

And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the
eastern sky. Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a
ruby was the heart.

But the Nightingale's voice grew fainter, and her little wings
began to beat, and a film came over her eyes. Fainter and fainter
grew her song, and she felt something choking her in her throat.

Then she gave one last burst of music. The white Moon heard it,
and she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose
heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its
petals to the cold morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern
in the hills, and woke the sleeping shepherds from their dreams.
It floated through the reeds of the river, and they carried its
message to the sea.

"Look, look!" cried the Tree, "the rose is finished now"; but the
Nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the long
grass, with the thorn in her heart.

And at noon the Student opened his window and looked out.

"Why, what a wonderful piece of luck!" he cried; "here is a red
rose! I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so
beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name"; and he leaned
down and plucked it.

Then he put on his hat, and ran up to the Professor's house with
the rose in his hand.

The daughter of the Professor was sitting in the doorway winding
blue silk on a reel, and her little dog was lying at her feet.

"You said that you would dance with me if I brought you a red
rose," cried the Student. "Here is the reddest rose in all the
world. You will wear it to-night next your heart, and as we dance
together it will tell you how I love you."

But the girl frowned.

"I am afraid it will not go with my dress," she answered; "and,
besides, the Chamberlain's nephew has sent me some real jewels, and
everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers."

"Well, upon my word, you are very ungrateful," said the Student
angrily; and he threw the rose into the street, where it fell into
the gutter, and a cart-wheel went over it.

"Ungrateful!" said the girl. "I tell you what, you are very rude;
and, after all, who are you? Only a Student. Why, I don't believe
you have even got silver buckles to your shoes as the Chamberlain's
nephew has"; and she got up from her chair and went into the house.

"What I a silly thing Love is," said the Student as he walked away.
"It is not half as useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything,
and it is always telling one of things that are not going to
happen, and making one believe things that are not true. In fact,
it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is
everything, I shall go back to Philosophy and study Metaphysics."

So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and
began to read.

[shible]

Ash Leaves


Overnight,
The ash leaves have changed
To ochre.
Occasionally, one will drop to the lawn
I’ll watch
Its feathered fall that is more a floating,
A delicate
Drifting in zigzags to the ground,
Spinning and twisting
In sailing motions like a fishing spoon
Swimming
In clear Spring waters.


This is
The season of change and letting go,
Of quiet
Release and things shed in gentle winds.
There is
Alchemy in autumn mornings
That turns
Base things golden and paints in
Brilliant and
Burning pigments upon each branch
The stored up prismed
And spectrumed light of August sunsets.

[Tilmeez]

The Artist
by Oscar Wilde

ONE evening there came into his soul the desire to fashion an image of The Pleasure that Abideth for a Moment. And he went forth into the world to look for bronze. For he could think only in bronze.
But all the bronze of the whole world had disappeared, nor anywhere in the whole world was there any bronze to be found, save only the bronze of the image of The Sorrow that Endureth For Ever.
Now this image he had himself, and with his own hands, fashioned, and had set it on the tomb of the one thing he had loved in life. On the tomb of the dead thing he had most loved had he set this image of his own fashioning, that it might serve as a sign of the love of man that dieth not, and a symbol of the sorrow of man that endureth for ever. And in the whole world there was no other bronze save the bronze of this image.
And he took the image he had fashioned, and set it in a great furnace, and gave it to the fire.
And out of the bronze of the image of The Sorrow that Endureth For Ever he fashioned an image of The Pleasure that Abideth for a Moment.

[shible]

Rudyard Kipling
If



If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;


If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

[shible]

Farewell Love a poem


Farewell, Love, and all thy laws for ever:
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore,
To perfect wealth my wit for to endeavour.
In blind error when I did persever,
Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,
Hath taught me to set in trifles no store,
And scape forth, since liberty is lever.
Therefore farewell, go trouble younger hearts,
And in me claim no more authority;
With idle youth go use thy property,
And thereon spend thy many brittle darts.
For, hitherto though I've lost my time,
Me lusteth no longer rotten boughs to climb



Farewell, Love, and all thy laws for ever:
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore,
To perfect wealth my wit for to endeavour.
In blind error when I did persever,
Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,
Hath taught me to set in trifles no store,
And scape forth, since liberty is lever.
Therefore farewell, go trouble younger hearts,
And in me claim no more authority;
With idle youth go use thy property,
And thereon spend thy many brittle darts.
For, hitherto though I've lost my time,
Me lusteth no longer rotten boughs to climb

[shible]

THE CROCUS
By
Harriet Beecher Stowe

Beneath the sunny autumn sky,
With gold leaves dropping round,
We sought, my little friend and I,
The consecrated ground,
Where, calm beneath the holy cross,
O'ershadowed by sweet skies,
Sleeps tranquilly that youthful form,
Those blue unclouded eyes.

Around the soft, green swelling mound
We scooped the earth away,
And buried deep the crocus-bulbs
Against a coming day.
"These roots are dry, and brown, and sere;
Why plant them here?" he said,
"To leave them, all the winter long,
So desolate and dead."

"Dear child, within each sere dead form
There sleeps a living flower,
And angel-like it shall arise
In spring's returning hour."
Ah, deeper down cold, dark, and chill
We buried our heart's flower,
But angel-like shall he arise
In spring's immortal hour.

In blue and yellow from its grave
Springs up the crocus fair,
And God shall raise those bright blue eyes,
Those sunny waves of hair.
Not for a fading summer's morn,
Not for a fleeting hour,
But for an endless age of bliss,
Shall rise our heart's dear flower

[Isambard]

Does it have to be an english classic? Got some excellent stuff from spanish writers

[shible]

Does it have to be an english classic? Got some excellent stuff from spanish writers

If we could understand then that's more benefitial Brother.

Since i knew only english

[SUMMAYAH]

Are you guys just googling everything or does this stuff really inspire you? Just curious....

[Isambard]

If we could understand then that's more benefitial Brother.

Since i knew only english

heh, well its an english translation. Loses a bit of the mmagic but still profundly beutiful

PS> I have a bad case of engrish >.<





Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Pablo Neruda

[shible]

Are you guys just googling everything or does this stuff really inspire you? Just curious....

Not Really sis,

These are a few of those things i get in mail or some that i come across when i go through some ebooks etc.,

anyhow if i was to provide it from Googling then i would've dropped da link

[Isambard]

Sonnet XVII (100 Love Sonnets, 1960)

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

Same author

[shible]

If My Tears Could Talk

If my tears could talk,
What would they display?
Thousands of words,
Not difficult to say

They'd whisper, "I'm Sorry!"
When I am wrong and you are right.
They'd scream, "I'm Scared!"
When I'm all alone in the middle of the night

They do talk,
But they reveal too much
They're not hidden
Just wiped away by your gentle touch.

They'd exclaim, "I'm Happy!"
Whenever you're around
They'd sigh, "I'm sad!"
When I'm feeling down.

They do talk
Won't you listen?
You just might find
What you've been missin'!

They'd reply, "I'm lonely"
When I'm thinking about you.
Is it too late for you to see
That my tears cry out, "I love You!"

They do talk
But you can't hear
A single word they'd say.
If only you could read a tear
Instead of wiping it away.