753. You Reading This, Be Ready, by William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life—

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

Source: The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

754. Prairie Spring, by Willa Cather

Evening and the flat land,
Rich and somber and always silent;
The miles of fresh-plowed soil,
Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness;
The growing wheat, the growing weeds,
The toiling horses, the tired men;
The long, empty roads,
Sullen fires of sunset, fading,
The eternal, unresponsive sky.
Against all this, Youth,
Flaming like the wild roses,
Singing like the larks over the plowed fields,
Flashing like a star out of the twilight;
Youth with its insupportable sweetness,
Its fierce necessity,
Its sharp desire;
Singing and singing,
Out of the lips of silence,
Out of the earthy dusk.

Source: Stories, Poems, and Other Writings

755. In the Harbor-Town, by Constantine Cavafy

Emis—young, twenty-eight—
reached this Syrian harbor in a Tenian ship,
his plan to learn the incense trade.
But ill during the voyage,
he died as soon as he was put ashore.
His burial, the poorest possible, took place here.
A few hours before dying he whispered something
about “home,” about “very old parents.”
But nobody knew who they were,
or what country he called home
in the great panhellenic world.
Better that way; because as it is,
though he lies buried in this harbor-town,
his parents will always have the hope he’s still alive.

(trans Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

Source: Collected Poems

756. Drinking Song, by Ts'ao Ts'ao

Drinking, I sing of peace and of equality:

The tax collector knocks at no gate;
all rulers are virtuous and bright,
and their arms and legs, the ministers, are kind.

The people are well mannered, yielding without
quarreling,
foregoing litigation.

Three years' tilling makes nine years' provisions—
granaries overflow.
Our elders' backs are freed from loads.
Each fecund rain
contributes to the harvest.

Our fastest horses are withdrawn from war
to carry fertilizer.

Those who hold land or titles
show genuine affection for people,
promoting or demoting by merit,
attending like fathers or brothers.

Lawbreakers
receive a fitting punishment.
No one keeps what's found beside the road.
The prisons are all empty.
Midwinter courts have no criminals to try.

People of eight or ninety
live out their lives quite naturally.

Great virtue impermeates it all—
even trees and plants and tiny things that crawl.

(trans Sam Hamill)

Source: Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese

757. The Song of Wandering Aengus, by W. B. Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats

758. VI from the Divan of Hafiz

A flower-tinted cheek, the flowery close
Of the fair earth, these are enough for me—
Enough that in the meadow wanes and grows
The shadow of a graceful cypress-tree.
I am no lover of hypocrisy;
Of all the treasures that the earth can boast,
A brimming cup of wine I prize the most—
                           This is enough for me!

To them that here renowned for virtue live,
A heavenly palace is the meet reward;
To me, the drunkard and the beggar, give
The temple of the grape with red wine stored!
Beside a river seat thee on the sward;
It floweth past—so flows thy life away,
So sweetly, swiftly, fleets our little day—
                           Swift, but enough for me!

Look upon all the gold in the world's mart,
On all the tears the world hath shed in vain;
Shall they not satisfy thy craving heart?
I have enough of loss, enough of gain;
I have my Love, what more can I obtain?
Mine in the joy of her companionship
Whose healing lip is laid upon my lip—
                            This is enough for me!

I pray thee send not forth my naked soul
From its poor house to seek for Paradise;
Though heaven and earth before me God unroll,
Back to thy village still my spirit flies.
And, Hafiz, at the door of Kismet lies
No just complaint—a mind like water clear,
A song that swells and dies upon the ear,
                            These are enough for thee!

(trans Gertrude Bell)

Source: Poems of Hafiz

759. Untitled, by Vidya

Fate is a cruel
and proficient potter,
my friend. Forcibly
spinning the wheel
of anxiety, he lifts misfortune
like a cutting tool. Now
having kneaded my heart
like a lump of clay,
he lays it on his
wheel and gives a spin.
What he intends to produce
I cannot tell.

(trans Andrew Schelling)

Source: Dropping the Bow: Poems of Ancient India