Chaucer: We goon wrong ful often, trewely

(Chaucer, from the Ellesmere Manuscript)

We witen nat what thing we preyen heere;
We faren as he that dronke is as a mous.
A dronke man woot wel he hath an hous,
But he noot which the righte wey is thider,
And to a dronke man the wey is slider.
And certes, in this world so faren we;
We seken faste after felicitee,
But we goon wrong ful often, trewely.

Surely we do not know exactly what we pray for; we behave like a man as drunk as a mouse. A drunk man knows very well that he has a home, but he does not know the right way to it; in addition, the road is slippery for a drunk man. Certainly, in the world we behave similarly. We try hard for happiness, but we very often go wrong.

--Chaucer, “The Knight’s Tale.” His Middle English verse, followed by R. M. Lumiansky’s prose modern English translation

Allen Tate: Calidus Juventa?

I finished Allen Tate's Collected Poems: 1919-1976 the other day. I cannot say it was always a pleasurable experience (he really makes a reader work hard, in a way like unto Eliot), but there were plenty of perfect lines to keep a reader occupied. Here's one of his earlier poems, from 1922, that is a good example of what I mean.

Calidus Juventa?

         Non ego hoc ferrem, calidus juventa, Consule Planco.

We are afraid that we have not lived.
We are not afraid of dying.
Toss images to the indifferent morning
Amid laughter and crying--
Amid fitful buffetings of strangled hearts
While they are dying.

Draw tight the words of death shivering
On the strictured page--
The cup of Morgan Fay is shattered.
Life is a bitter sage,
And we are weary infants
In a palsied age.

Wendell Berry: Tu Fu

(Tu Fu, Tang Dynasty Chinese poet)

Tu Fu 

As I sit here
in my little boat
tied to the shore
of the passing river
in a time of ruin,
I think of you,
old ancestor,
and wish you well. 

      --Wendell Berry, from Leavings

Ted Kooser: A Glimpse of the Eternal

(Image credit: loc.gov)

Just now,
a sparrow lighted
on a pine bough
right outside
my bedroom window
and a puff
of yellow pollen
flew away.

--Ted Kooser, from Delights & Shadows

Stephen Crane: Black Riders XLVII

 XLVII

"Think as I think," said a man,
"Or you are abominably wicked;
"You are a toad." 

And after I had thought of it,
I said, "I will, then, be a toad."

   --Stephen Crane, from Black Riders and Other Lines

Christian Wiman: I Sing Insomnia

I sing insomnia

                          to the minor devils

prowling alleys

                         of my mind

loneliness’s lipsticked leer

                                            fear

no fix can ease

                         envy sipping bile

I make a lullaby

                           to make myself

into a sleeper

                      of the faith

awake

             my little while

alive

         without a why

                    --Christian Wiman, from Every Riven Thing

Thoreau: A Different Drummer

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

--Henry David Thoreau, from Walden