https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Abulbul_Amir

Abdul Abulbul Amir

The sons of the Prophet were hardy and bold
And quite unaccustomed to fear,
But the bravest of all, at least so I am told,
Was Abdulah Bul Bul Ameer.

If you wanted a man to encourage the van,
Or harass the foe from the rear,
Or to storm a redoubt, you had but to shout
For Abdulah Bul Bul Ameer.

There were heroes in plenty and men known to fame
In the army then led by the Czar,
But not of more fame than a man by the name
Of Ivan Petrovsky Skavar.

He could imitate Irving, tell fortunes with cards,
He could play on the Spanish guitar.
In fact quite the cream of the Muscovite team
Was Ivan Petrovsky Skavar.

One day this bold Russian had shouldered his gun
And with his most cynical sneer,
Was looking for fun when he happened to run
Upon Abdulah Bul Bul Ameer.

"Young man" said Bul Bul "is existence so dull
That you're anxious to end your career?
For, infidel, know, you have trod on the toe
Of Abdulah Bul Bul Ameer."

"So take your last look upon sunshine and brook
Send your regrets to the Czar;
By which I imply you are going to die,
Mr. Ivan Petrovsky Skavar."

Then this bold Marmaduke [sic] drew his trusty skibouk,
Crying "Allah, il Allah, Allah"
And on slaughter intent, he ferociously went
For Ivan Petrovsky Skavar.

On a stone by the banks where the Danube doth roll
Inscribed in characters clear,
Is "Stranger, remember to pray for the soul
Of Abdulah Bul Bul Ameer."

A Muscovite maiden her sad vigil keeps,
In her home by the cold Northern Star,
And the name that she murmurs in vain as she weeps,
Is Ivan Petrovsky Skavar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abou_Ben_Adhem_(poem)

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold:—

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest,

And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle
e questa siepe che da tanta parte
dell'ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.
Ma sedendo e mirando interminato
spazio di là da quella, e sovrumani
silenzi, e profondissima quiete
io nel pensier mi fingo ove per poco
il cor non si spaura. E come il vento
odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
Infinito silenzio a questa voce
vo comparando e mi sovvien l'eterno
E le morte stagioni, e la presente
e viva e il suon di lei. Così tra questa
immensità si annega il pensier mio:
e il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare (Giacomo Leopardi)

The tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;

Along the sea-sands damp and brown

The traveller hastens toward the town,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.



Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

Efface the footprints in the sands,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.



The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

The day returns, but nevermore

Returns the traveller to the shore,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.



-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Death Is Nothing At All

By Henry Scott-Holland



Death is nothing at all.

It does not count.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

Nothing has happened.



Everything remains exactly as it was.

I am I, and you are you,

and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.



Call me by the old familiar name.

Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.

Put no difference into your tone.

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.



Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.

Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.



Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same as it ever was.

There is absolute and unbroken continuity.

What is this death but a negligible accident?



Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you, for an interval,

somewhere very near,

just round the corner.



All is well.

Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.

One brief moment and all will be as it was before.

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!







Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/death-is-nothing-at-all-by-henry-scott-holland

Hold me close and hold me fast

The magic spell you cast

This is la vie en rose

When you kiss me, Heaven sighs

And though I close my eyes

I see la vie en rose

When you press me to your heart

And in a world apart

A world where roses bloom

And when you speak

Angels sing from above

Every day words

Seems to turn into love songs

Give your heart and soul to me

And life will always be

La vie en rose





Des yeux qui font baisser les miens

Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche

Voilà le portrait sans retouches

De l'homme auquel j'appartiens

Quand il me prend dans ses bras

Il me parle tout bas

Je vois la vie en rose

Il me dit des mots d'amour

Des mots de tous les jours

Et ça me fait quelque chose

Il est entré dans mon cœur

Une part de bonheur

Dont je connais la cause

C'est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie

Il me l'a dit, l'a juré pour la vie

Et dès que je l'aperçois

Alors je sens en moi

Mon cœur qui bat

Des nuits d'amour à plus finir

Un grand bonheur qui prend sa place

Des ennuis, des chagrins s'effacent

Heureux, heureux à en mourir

Quand il me prend dans ses bras

Il me parle tout bas

Je vois la vie en rose

Il me dit des mots d'amour

Des mots de tous les jours

Et ça me fait quelque chose

Il est entré dans mon cœur

Une part de bonheur

Dont je connais la cause

C'est toi pour moi, moi pour toi dans la vie

Il me l'a dit, l'a juré pour la vie

Et dès que je t'aperçois

Alors je sens dans moi

Mon cœur qui bat

La la, la la, la la

La la, la la, ah la

La la la la

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;



Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,



And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.



I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

From childhoods hour i have not been

As others were i have not seen

As others saw i could not bring

My passion from a common spring

From the same source i have not taken

My sorrow i could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone

And all i loved i loved alone

Then in my childhood in the dawn

Of a most stormy life was drawn

From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still

From the torrent or the fountain

From the red cliff of the mountain

From the sun that round me rolled

In its autumn tint of gold

From the lightning in the sky

As it passed me flying by

From the thunder and the storm

And the cloud that took the form

When the rest of heaven was blue

Of a demon in my view



Alone by E.A.P

The Cremation of Sam Mcgee by Robert W. Service



There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.



Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell".



On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;

It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.



And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,

He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."



Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:

"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."



A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.



There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,

With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,

But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."



Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing.



And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;

And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;

And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.



Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May".

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;

Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."



Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;

Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;

The flames just soared, and the furnace roared -- such a blaze you seldom see;

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.



Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.



I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.

I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked";. . . then the door I opened wide.



And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.

It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm --

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."



There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

- Onion Lullabies (by Miguel Hernández)



The onion is frost,

closed an impoverished.

Frost of your days

and my nights.

Hunger and onion,

black ice and frost

vast and round.



On the cradle of hunger

my baby boy laid.

With onion blood

he was breast-fed.

But it was was your blood,

frosted with sugar,

onion and hunger.



A brown skinned woman,

resolute as the moon

pours herself, thread upon thread

on the cradle.

Laugh, child of mine,

and I will bring you the moon

when needs be.



Lark of my home,

laugh a lot.

Laughter in your eyes is

the light of the world.

Laugh so much

that my soul, upon hearing you

flaps in space.



Your laughter makes me free,

gives me wings.

Takes lonelinesses away,

rips jail away from me.

Mouth that flies,

heart that in your lips

crashes like lightning.



You laughet is

the most vctorious sword,

victor of the flowes

and the larks.

Rival to the sun,

future of my bones

and my love.



The batting flesh,

the sudden eyelash

life, coloured as never

it was before.

How many robins

fly up, flip their wings

from atop your body!



I woke up from being a child:

may you never wake up.

My mouth is sad:

may you always laugh.

Always in your cradle,

defending laughter

feather by feather.



Being of flight so vast,

so expansive

that your flesh is

a newborn sky.

That I could

climb up to the start

of your voyage!



On the eight month you laugh

with five saffron flowers,

with five tiny

ferocities.

With five teeth

like five adolescent jasmines.



Tomorrow they shall be

the border of kisses,

when you feel a weapon

between your teeth.

When you feel a fire

run down from gritted teeth

looking for your center.



Fly, chilt on the double

moon of the breast:

him, saddened with onions,

you, sated.

Don´t fall apart

never know of what happens

or what transpires.



This poem was composed by Miguel Hernánndez while in jail after the Spanish Civil War, this the many references to freedom and jails. The origin was a letter from his wife, wher she told him that she only had bread and onions to eat, and that both her and his child suffered from severe hunger. Hernández never met the boy, as he would eventually die in prison.

Demain, dès l'aube, à l'heure où blanchit la campagne,

Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m'attends.

J'irai par la forêt, j'irai par la montagne.

Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.



Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,

Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,

Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,

Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.



Je ne regarderai ni l'or du soir qui tombe,

Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,

Et quand j'arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe

Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.



Victor Hugo

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/apr/02/shades-poe/



El Dorado by Edgar Allan Poe



Gaily bedight,

A gallant night

In sunshine and in shadow,

Had journeyed long,

Singing a song,

In search of El Dorado.



But he grew old --

This knight so bold --

And -- o'er his heart a shadow

Fell as he found

No spot of ground

That looked like El Dorado.



And, as his strength

Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow --

"Shadow," said he,

"Where can it be --

This land of El Dorado?"



"Over the Mountains

Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,

Ride, boldly ride,"

The shade replied --

"If you seek for El Dorado."

THIS ONE

Greater Love



Red lips are not so red

As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

Kindness of wooed and wooer

Seems shame to their love pure.

O Love, your eyes lose lure

When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!



Your slender attitude

Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,

Rolling and rolling there

Where God seems not to care:

Till the fierce love they bear

Cramps them in death’s extreme decrepitude.



Your voice sings not so soft,—

Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,—

Your dear voice is not dear,

Gentle, and evening clear,

As theirs whom none now hear,

Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.



Heart, you were never hot

Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;

And though your hand be pale,

Paler are all which trail

Your cross through flame and hail:

Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.



Wilfred Owen

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 impostors 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 worn-out 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 breathe 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!


Rudyard Kipling