862. Ask the Rose About the Rose, by Jalal al-Din Rumi

The interpretation of a sacred text is true
if it stirs you to hope, activity, and awe;
and if it makes you slacken your service,
know the real truth to be this:
it's a distortion of the sense of the saying,
not a true interpretation.
This saying has come down
to inspire you to serve—
that God may take the hands
of those who have lost hope.
Ask the meaning of the Qur'an from the Qur'an alone,
and from the one who has set fire
to his idle fancy and burned it away,
and has become a sacrifice to the Qur'an,
bowing low in humbleness,
so that the Qur'an has become the essence of his spirit.
If an essential oil that has utterly devoted itself to the rose,
you can smell either than oil or the rose, as you please.

(trans Kabir Helminsky and Camille Helminsky)

Source: The Rumi Collection

863. March Evening, by Harry Martinson

Winterspring, nightfall, thawing.
Boys have lit a candle in a snowball house.
For the man in the evening train that rattles past,
it is a red memory surrounded by gray time,
calling, calling, out of stark woods just waking up.
And the man who was traveling never got home,
his life stayed behind, held by that lantern and that hour.

(trans Robert Bly)

Source: The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations

864. "I watched the Moon around the House," by Emily Dickinson

I watched the Moon around the House
Until upon a Pane —
She stopped — a Traveller's privilege — for rest —
And there upon

I gazed — as at a stranger —
The Lady in the Town
Doth think no incivility
To lift her Glass — upon —

But never Stranger justified
The Curiosity
Like Mine — for not a Foot — nor Hand —
Nor Formula — had she —

But like a Head — a Guillotine
Slid carelessly away —
Did independent, Amber —
Sustain her in the sky —

Or like a Stemless Flower —
Upheld in rolling Air
By finer Gravitations —
Than bind Philosopher —

No Hunger — had she — nor an Inn —
Her Toilette — to suffice —
Nor Avocation — nor Concern
For little Mysteries

As harass us — like Life — and Death —
And Afterwards — or Nay —
But seemed engrossed to Absolute —
With shining — and the Sky —

The privilege to scrutinize
Was scarce upon my Eyes
When, with a Silver practise —
She vaulted out of Gaze —

And next — I met her on a Cloud —
Myself too far below
To follow her superior Road —
Or its advantage — Blue —

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

865. The Rabbit, by W. H. Davies

Not even when the early birds
Danced on my roof with showery feet
Such music as will come from rain —
Not even then could I forget
The rabbit in his hours of pain;
Where, lying in an iron trap,
He cries all through the deafened night —
Until his smiling murderer comes,
To kill him in the morning light.

Source: The Collected Poems of W.H. Davies

866. The Lake Isle of Innisfree, by W. B. Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Source: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

867. Anniversary on the Island, by W.S. Merwin

The long waves glide in through the afternoon
while we watch from the island
from the cool shadow under the trees where the long ridge
a fold in the skirt of the mountain
runs down to the end of the headland

day after day we wake to the island
the light rises through the drops on the leaves
and we remember like birds where we are
night after night we touch the dark island
that once we set out for

and lie still at last with the island in our arms
hearing the leaves and the breathing shore
there are no years any more
only the one mountain
and on all sides the sea that brought us

Source: Migration: New & Selected Poems

868. Sonnet, by John Masefield

from the Spanish of Don Francisco de Quevedo

I saw the ramparts of my native land,
One time so strong, now dropping in decay,
Their strength destroyed by this new age's way
That has worn out and rotted what was grand.
I went into the fields: there I could see
The sun drink up the waters newly thawed,
And on the hills the moaning cattle pawed;
Their miseries robbed the day of light for me.

I went into my house: I saw how spotted,
Decaying things made that old home their prize.
My withered walking-staff had come to bend;
I felt the age had won; my sword was rotted,
And there was nothing on which I set my eyes
That was not a reminder of the end.

Source: The Collected Poems of John Masefield