You are the future,
the red sky before sunrise
over the fields of time.
You are the cock’s crow when night is done,
You are the dew and the bells of matins,
maiden, stranger, mother, death.
You create yourself in ever-changing shapes
that rise from the stuff of our days –
unsung, unmourned, undescribed,
like a forest we never knew.
You are the deep innerness of all things,
the last word that can never be spoken.
To each of us you reveal yourself differently:
to the ship as coastline, to the shore as a ship.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Wisdom
When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I have looked Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in exchange — my youth.
– Sara Teasdale
Temporary Well Being
The pond is plenteous
The land is lush,
And having turned off the news
I am for the moment mellow.
With my book in one hand
And my drink in the other
What more could I want
But fame,
Better health,
And ten million dollars?
– Kenneth Burke
Not long ago, in a charming dream,
I saw myself — a king with crown’s treasure;
I was in love with you, it seemed,
And heart was beating with a pleasure.
I sang my passion’s song by your enchanting knees.
Why, dreams, you didn’t prolong my happiness forever?
But gods deprived me not of whole their favor:
I only lost the kingdom of my dreams.
–Alexander Pushkin