"Dawn"
by Arthur Rimbaud
I embraced the summer dawn.
Nothing was stirring yet in front of the palaces. The water lay lifeless. Encamped shadows did not leave the woodland road. I stepped forth, arousing breaths alive and warm, and precious stones kept watch, and wings rose up without a sound.
My first enterprise was, in the path already filled with cool, pale glints, a flower that told me her name.
I laughed at the blond waterfall which tossed disheveled hair across the pines: on the silvery summit I espied the goddess.
Then, one by one, I lifted her veils. In the lanes waving my arms. On the plain, where I gave the cock notice of her coming. In the city, she fled among the steeples and domes, and, running like a beggar across the marble quays, I pursued her.
On the upper part of the road, near a grove of laurels, I surrounded her with her massed veils, and sensed somewhat her immeasurable body. Dawn and the child plunged to the bottom of the wood.
When I awoke, it was noon.
(the original is in French, so here is a rough translation)
"Aube"
J'ai embrassé l'aube d'été.
Rien ne bougeait encore en face du palais. L'eau jeter sans vie. Campé ombres ne quittaient pas la route boisée. J'ai s'avança, suscitant respirations vivante et chaleureuse,et des pierres précieuses veillaient, et les ailes se levèrent sans bruit.
Ma première entreprise fut, dans le chemin déjà rempli de fraîcheur, des reflets pâles, une fleur qui me dit son nom.
J'ai ri à la cascade blonde échevelée, qui jeté à travers les pins: sur le sommet argentéj'avisai la déesse.
Puis, un par un, j'ai levé les voiles. Dans les ruelles en agitant les bras. Sur la plaine, où j'ai donné le préavis coq de sa venue. Dans la ville, elle a fui parmi les clochers et les dômes,et courant comme un mendiant à travers les quais de marbre, je l'ai poursuivi.
Sur la partie supérieure de la route, près d'un bosquet de lauriers, je l'ai entourée avecses voiles massés, et j'ai senti un peu son corps incommensurable. L'aube et l'enfantplongé au fond du bois.
Quand je me réveillai, il était midi.
"London"
by William Blake
I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
Sonnet 116
by William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
