No Man Knows The Other

Hermann Hesse, In the Mist = Im Nebel, tr. Harry Steinhauer:

        Strange, to wander in the mist!
        Every bush and stone is lonely,
        no tree sees the other,
        each one is alone.

        The world was full of friends for me,
        when my life was still bright;
        now, when the mist falls,
        not one is visible any longer.

        Truly, no one is wise,
        who does not know the dark,
        which inescapably and softly
        separates him from them all.

        Strange, to wander in the mist!
        To live is to be lonely.
        No man knows the other,
        each one is alone.

We Were One

Heloise to Abelard, in Abelard and Heloise: The Love Letters, A Poetical Rendering, tr. Ella C. Bennett (San Francisco & New York: Paul Elder and Com., 1907), 1-2:

        My Abelard, my love, my own adored!
        When last I wrote to thee my soul I poured,
        In all its grief and anguish from my heart—
        O Abelard, my love, why did we part?
        Why didst thou hide thyself in gloomy cell,
        And banish me, ’til earth seemed part of Hell?
        And my last letter! O not answered yet!
        I cannot for one single hour forget
        That we were one. At night from dreams I call
        Thy name aloud, in pain, then like a pall,
        The ceiling of my cell o’ercaps my view,—
        And visions fade again that brought me you!

        Think you at night when at my prayers I kneel,
        That only thoughts celestial through me steal?
        Think you the sound of orisons divine
        Can banish that lost bliss—that you were mine?
        That once you loved me, we together slept,
        Together laughed and loved, together wept;
        Together shared each joy, each pain, each thought? [...]

Nought But Death

Abraham Cowley, Constantia and Philetus (written around 1630, when Cowley was only twelve years old), ll. 445-476:

        I trust (deare soule) my absence cannot move
        You to forget, or doubt my ardent love;
        For were there any meanes to see you, I
        Would runne through Death and all the miserie
        Fate could inflict, that so the world might say,
        In Life and Death I lov’d CONSTANTIA.                    450
        Then let not (dearest sweet) our absence sever
        Our loves, let them ioyn’d closely still together,
        Give warmth to one another, till there rise
        From all our labours, and our industries
        The long-expected fruits; have patience (Sweet)
        There's no man whom the Summer pleasures greet
        Before he tast the Winter; none can say,
        Ere Night was gone, he saw the rising Day.
            So when wee once have wasted Sorrowe’s night,
            The sunne of Comfort then, shall give us light.       460
                                                                                PHILETUS.

        Your absence (Sir) though it be long, yet I
        Neither forget, nor doubt your Constancie.
        Nor, need you feare, that I should yeeld vnto
        Another, what to your true Love is due.                       470
        My heart is yours, it is not in my claime,
        Nor have I power to give it away againe.
        There's nought but Death can part our soules, no time
        Or angry Friends, shall make my Love decline:
            But for the harvest of our hopes I’le stay,
            Vnlesse Death cut it, ere’t be ripe, away.
                                                                            CONSTANTIA.

First Affections

William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood:

         [...] High instincts before which our mortal Nature
                Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
                      But for those first affections,
                      Those shadowy recollections,
                Which, be they what they may
                Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
                Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
                    Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
                Our noisy years seem moments in the being
                Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
                    To perish never;
                Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
                      Nor Man nor Boy,
                Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
                Can utterly abolish or destroy! [...]
                    Though nothing can bring back the hour
                Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
                      We will grieve not, rather find
                      Strength in what remains behind;
                      In the primal sympathy
                      Which having been must ever be;
                      In the soothing thoughts that spring
                      Out of human suffering;
                      In the faith that looks through death, [...]
                Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
                Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
                To me the meanest flower that blows can give
                Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Melancholy Bird

Charlotte Smith, Sonnet III., To A Nightingale:

            Poor melancholy bird—that all night long
            Tell’st to the Moon thy tale of tender woe;
            From what sad cause can such sweet sorrow flow,
            And whence this mournful melody of song?
            Thy poet’s musing fancy would translate
            What mean the sounds that swell thy little breast,
            When still at dewy eve thou leav’st thy nest,
            Thus to the listening night to sing thy fate!
            Pale Sorrow’s victims wert thou once among,
            Tho’ now releas’d in woodlands wild to rove?
            Say—hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong,
            Or died’st thou—martyr of disastrous love?
            Ah! songstress sad! that such my lot might be,
            To sigh and sing at liberty—like thee!

In Yourself Encased

Fyodor Tyutchev, Silentium, tr. Anatoly Liberman (in his On the Heights of Creation):

                Speak not, lie deep, do not reveal
                Things that you wish or things you feel;
                Within your soul's protected mine
                Let them ascend and then decline
                Like silent stars in heaven bleak:
                Admire their sheen—but do not speak.

                How can a heart be put in words?
                By others—how can one be heard?
                Will people know what you live by?
                A thought expressed becomes a lie.
                Don't muddy springs that are unique:
                Drink from their depth—but do not speak.

                Live only in yourself encased;
                Your soul contains a world of chaste,
                Mysterious thoughts, which outside noise
                Robs of their magic and destroys;
                The rays of morning make them weak—
                Enjoy their song—but do not speak!

The Lonely Road

Lermontov, Alone I Pass Along the Lonely Road (tr. John Pollen):

            Alone I pass along the lonely road,

            Thro’ gathering mist the pebbly pathway gleams;

            The night is still;—the void remembers God,

            And star vibrates to star with speaking beams.

            A wondrous glory moves across the sky;

            Soft sleeps the earth in dove-grey azure light.

            Why aches my heart? Why troubled thus am I?

            What wait I for, what grieve I for, this night?

            No more from life can I expect to gain,

            And for the “has been” it were vain to weep;

            I simply seek repose, release from pain,

            And fain would rest, forgetting all, in sleep.

            But not the sleep which the cold tomb implies;

            But rather would I rest for ages so

            That in my breast the strength of life might rise

            In gentle wavelets, heaving to and fro.

            The while that in my ears by night and day,

            A sweet voice sang of ceaseless love to me;

            And o’er me leaned, greening in every spray

            And faintly whispering, my dark cedar tree.

The Best Thing In The World

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Best Thing In The World:

            What’s the best thing in the world?
            June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
            Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
            Truth, not cruel to a friend;
            Pleasure, not in haste to end;
            Beauty, not self-decked and curled
            Till its pride is over-plain;
            Light, that never makes you wink;
            Memory, that gives no pain;
            Love, when, so, you’re loved again.
            What’s the best thing in the world?
            —Something out of it, I think.

On Life

Palladas, Anthologia Græca (Jacobs III. 141, cxxviii.), the epigram is trans. by Rev. Robert Bland:

            Waking, we burst, at each return of morn,
            From death’s dull fetters and again are born;
            No longer ours the moments that have past,
            To a new remnant of our lives we haste.
            Call not the years thine own that made thee gray,
            That left their wrinkles and have fled away;
            The past no more shall yield thee ill or good.
            Gone to the silent times beyond the flood.

Life's A Tragedy

Edmund Spenser, Complaints: The Tears of the Muses:

            For all man's life me seemes a tragedy,
            Full of sad sights and sore catastrophees;
            First comming to the world with weeping eye,
            Where all his dayes, like dolorous trophees,                    160
            Are heapt with spoyles of fortune and of feare,
            And he at last laid forth on balefull beare.

Palladas (tr. Rev. William Shepherd):

            In tears I came into this world of woe;
            In tears I sink into the shades below;
            In tears I pass’d through life’s contracted span—
            Such is the hapless state of feeble man:
            Crawling on earth, his wretched lot he mourns.
            And, thankful, to his native dust returns.

Another translation of the same (found in: Symonds, Studies of The Greek Poets, vol. II. (New York, 1880), ch. XXI., The Anthology, pp. 311-2):

The Idly Read

James Hurnard, Arthur and Helen (found in: James Hurnard: A Memoir, Chiefly Autobiographical, with Selections from his Poems, edt. Louisa B. Hurnard, London, 1883, p. 94):

35        Much had he read, but yet he studied not;
            And what is idly read is soon forgot;
            Still, much he knew; and what he knew was worth
            More than much knowledge which, in nooks of earth,
            Dull schoolmen prize. The wisdom which he drank
40        Was not drawn up from Learning's leaden tank,
            He quenched his thirst at Nature's crystal rills,
            And sipped the dew-drops which the morn distils.
            The song of birds, the wind's majestic roar,
            The solemn fall of billows on the shore.
45        Nature has many tongues with which to teach;
            He knew them all, and comprehended each;
            And when he looked on earth or gazed on high,
            And saw the planets navigate the sky,
            Mind, with her various powers, within him wrought
50        And furnished soon his treasury of thought.
            He saw ideal forms all pure and bright,
            And peopled earth with denizens of light.
            Exalted thus above the mean and base
            He shunned the frigid of the human race.
55        He was not proud, and yet he could despise
            Ignoble minds that never dare to rise.

Lente Sed Attente

George Wither, A Collection of Emblems, Ancient and Modern, Illvstr. XIX., Bk. 1:

Experience proves, that Men who trust upon

Their Nat'rall parts, too much, oft lose the Day,

And, faile in that which els they might have done,

By vainely trifling pretious Time away.

It also shewes, that many Men have sought

With so much Rashnesse, those things they desir'd,

That they have brought most likely Hopes to nought;

And, in the middle of their Courses, tir'd.

And, not a few, are found who so much wrong

Gods Gratiousnesse, as if their thinkings were,

That (seeing he deferres his Iudgements long)

His Vengeance, he, for ever, would forbeare:

But, such as these may see wherein they faile,

And, what would fitter be for them to doe,

If they would contemplate the slow-pac'd Snaile;

Or, this our Hieroglyphicke looke into:

For, thence we learne, that Perseverance brings

Large Workes to end, though slowly they creepe on;

And, that Continuance perfects many things,

Which seeme, at first, unlikely to be done.

It warnes, likewise, that some Affaires require

More Heed then Haste: And that the Course we take,

Should suite as well our Strength, as our Desire;

Else (as our Proverbe saith) Haste, Waste may make.

And, in a Mysticke-sense, it seemes to preach

Repentance and Amendment, unto those

Who live, as if they liv'd beyond Gods reach;

Because, he long deferres deserved Blowes:

For, though Iust-Vengeance moveth like a Snaile,

And slowly comes; her comming will not faile.

 

The emblem is originally by Gabriel Rollenhagen (1583-1619), whose emblem books are gems to forever cherish. 

The Wife's Lament

Old English Poems, tr. Cosette Faust & Stith Thompson (1918), 1. Pagan Poetry, 2. Gnomic Group, The Wife's Lament, pp. 73-74:

[...]                                        Here bitterly I have suffered

The faring of my lord afar. Friends there are on earth

Living in love,             in lasting bliss,

While, wakeful at dawn,     I wander alone

Under the oak-tree         the earth-cave near.

Sadly I sit there         the summer-long day,

Wearily weeping         my woeful exile,

My many miseries.        Hence I may not ever

Cease my sorrowing,     my sad bewailing,

Nor all the longings         of my life of woe. 

Always may the young man be mournful of spirit,

Unhappy of heart,         and have as his portion

Many sorrows of soul, unceasing breast-cares,

Though now blithe of behavior. Unbearable likewise

Be his joys in the world.    Wide be his exile

To far-away folk-lands     where my friend sits alone,

A stranger under stone-cliffs, by storm made hoary,

A weary-souled wanderer, by waters encompassed,

In his lonely lodging.         My lover endures

Unmeasured mind-care: he remembers too oft

A happier home.         To him is fate cruel

Who lingers and longs for the loved one’s return!

Lucid Love

Émile Verhaeren, The Love Poems of Émile Verhaeren, tr. F. S. Flint, 1916, xv.:

I dedicate to your tears, to your smile, my gentlest thoughts, those I tell you, those also that remain undefined and too deep to tell.

I dedicate to your tears, to your smile, to your whole soul, my soul, with its tears and its smiles and its kiss.

See, the dawn whitens the ground that is the colour of lees of wine; shadowy bonds seem to slip and glide away with melancholy; the water of the ponds grows bright and sifts its noise; the grass glitters and the flowers open, and the golden woods free themselves from the night.

Oh! what if we could one day enter thus into the full light; oh, what if we could one day, with conquering cries and lofty prayers, with no more veils upon us and no more remorse in us, oh! what if we could one day enter together into lucid love.