Now and then – Robert Penn Warren 1976

“And I, too, went on my way, the winning and losing, or what

Is sometimes of all things the worst, the not knowing

One thing from the other.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘American Portrait Old Style’, 1976, p.5).

“But what can you say -

Can you say – when all-to-be-said is the done?” (Robert Penn Warren ‘American Portrait Old Style’, 1976, p.6).

“Late, late, toward sunset, I wandered

Where old dreams had once been Life’s truth.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘American Portrait Old Style’, 1976, p.6).

“But why should I lie here longer?

I am not dead yet, though in years,

And the world’s way is yet long to go

And I love the world even in my anger

And love is a hard thing to outgrow.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘American Portrait Old Style’, 1976, p.7).

“And now, when all voices were stilled and the lamps

Long out in the tent, and stars

Had changed place in the sky, I yet lay

By the spring with one hand in the cold black water

That showed one star in reflection, alone – and lay

Wondering and wondering, how many

A morning would I rise up to greet

And what grace find.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘Amazing grace in the back country’, 1976, p.10).

 “We found nothing to say, for what can a voice say when

The world is a voice, no ear needing.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘Star-Fall’, 1976, p.24).

“Moonlight stumbles with bright heel

In the stream, and the stones sing.

What they sing is nothing, nothing,

But the joy Time plies to feel

In fraternal flux and glimmer

With the stream that does not know

Its destination and knows no

Truth but its own moonlit shimmer.

In my dream Time and water interflow,

And bubbles of consciousness glimmer ghostly as they go.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘Dream of a Dream’, 1976, p.30).

 “All will be in vain unless – unless what? Unless

You realize that what you think is Truth is only

A husk for something else. Which might,

Shall we say, be called energy, as good a word as any. (…)

(…)

At night I have stood there, and the wide world

Was flat and circular under the storm of the

Geometry of stars. The mountains, in starlight, were black

And black-toothed to define the enormous circle

Of desert of which I was the center. This

Is one way to approach the question.

All is in vain unless you can, motionless, standing there,

Breathe with the rhythm of stars.

You cannot, of course, see your own face, but you know that it,

Lifted, is stripped to white bone by starlight. This is happening.

This is happiness.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘Unless’, 1976, p.36).

“… I wake

From my dream, and know that the shadow

Of the great spruce close by my house must be falling

Black on the white roof of winter. The spruce

Wants to hide the house from the moon, for

The moon’s intentions have never been quite clear.

The spruce does not know that a square of moonlight lies cunningly on

The floor by my bed.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘The mission’, 1976, p.41).

“What does the veery say, at dusk in shad-thicket?

There must be some meaning, or why should your heart stop,

As though, in the dark depth of water, Time held its breath,

While the message spins on like a spool of silk thread fallen.

(…)

What meaning, when at the unexpected street corner,

You meet some hope long forgotten, and your old heart,

Like neon in shore fog, or distance, glows dimly again?

Will you waver, or clench stoic teeth and move on?” (Robert Penn Warren ‘Code Book Lost’, 1976, p.43).

“Yes, message on message, like wind or water, in light or in dark,

The whole world pours at us. But the code book, somehow, is lost.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘Code Book Lost’, 1976, p.44).

“… You cannot pray. But

You can wash your face in cold water.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘Sister Water, 1976, p.48).

“There are many things in the world and you

Are one of them. Many things keep happening and

You are one of them, and the happening that

Is you keeps falling like snow

On the landscape of not-you, hiding hideousness, until

The streets and the world of wrath are choked with snow.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘Love recognized’, 1976, p.52).

“Mellow, mellow, at thrush-hour

Swells the note to redeem all – Sweat and swink and daytime’s rancor

And the thought that all’s not worth all.

Blue in distance while the sun dips,

Talus, cliff, and forest melt

Into the promise that soon sleep

Will heal the soul’s identity.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘The smile, 1976, p.53).

“This is the season when cards are exchanged, or

Addresses scribbled on paper, with ragged edges. Smiles

Are frozen with a mortuary precision to seal friendships. Time is up.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘Departure’, 1976, p.72).

The two Gentlemen of Verona - William Shakespeare

“Speed:

Sir Proteus, save you. Saw you my master?

Proteus:

But now he parted hence, to embark for Milan.

Speed:

Twenty to one, then, he is shipp’d already,

And I have play’d the sheep in losing him.

Proteus:

Indeed, a sheep doth very often stray,

An if the shepherd be awhile away.

Speed:

You conclude that my master is a shepherd then,

And I a sheep?

Proteus:

I do.

Speed:

Why, then, my horns are his horns, whether I

wake or sleep?

Proteus:

A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.

Speed:

This proves me still a sheep.

Proteus:

True; and thy master a shepherd.

Speed:

Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.

Proteus:

It shall go hard but I’ll prove it by another.

Speed:

The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep

The shepherd; but I seek my master, and my

Master seeks not me: therefore I am no sheep.

Proteus:

The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd,

The shepherd for food follows not the sheep;

Thou for wages follows thy master, thy master

For wages follows not thee: therefore thou art a

Sheep.

Speed:

Such another proof will make me cry ‘ba’.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.188).

“Proteus:

Thus I have shunn’d the fire for fear of burning,

Ad drench’d me in the sea, where I am drowned.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.191).

William Shakespeare – The Comedy of Errors - 1994

Not the most exciting of Shakespeare plays, but full of interesting wordplays. 

Also nicely summarized in one sentence early on: 

“I to the world am like a drop of water

That in the ocean seeks another drop.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.167). 

“In Syracuse was I born; and wed

Unto a woman, happy but for me

And by me too, had not our hap been bad.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.166).

  

“Dromio of Syracuse:

Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,

When in the why and the wherefore is neither time nor reason?

Well, sir, I thank you.

Antipholus of Syracuse:

Thank me, sir! For what?

Dromio of Syracuse:

Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.170).

“Luciana:

And may it be that you have quite forgot

A husband’s office? Shall, Antipholus,

Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?

Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?

If you did wed my sister for her wealth,

Then for her wealth’s sake use her with more kindness:

Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth

Muffle your false love with some show of blindness:

Let my sister read it in your eye.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.174).

“Luciana:

What, are you mad, that you do reason so?

Antipholus of Syracuse:

For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.

Luciana:

Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sigth.

Antipholus of Syracuse:

As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.

Luciana:

Why call you me love? Call my sister so.

Antipholus of Syracuse:

Thy sister’s sister.

Luciana:

That’s my sister.

Antipholus of Syracuse:

No;

It is thyself, mine own self’s better part” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.174).