It's the same old song, but with a different meaning since you've been gone.
Of course these were the English poems that I know Ewa liked. I do not know the Polish ones, but I know there were many. In some sense these are my favorites. Ewa liked it when I read poems to her, and these are the ones I remember her liking the most.
Many of these have taken on a greater poignancy and a new significance since her death. Ewa sent me a card once that had parodies of a few of these.
Laugh and the World Laughs with You Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you.
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
From "The Deacon's Masterpiece"....
You see of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,-
All at once, and nothing first,ñ
Just as bubbles do when they burst.
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Polonius' Advice to Laertes
From HamletThis above all: To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare
If If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force you heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings -nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run.
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a man my son!
Rudyard Kipling
From Ode to a Grecian UrnHeard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone;
John Keats
Hardly a day goes by that I don't ponder the sense of this poem.
The Saddest Words...Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
J. G. Whittie
How Did You Die? Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it.
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?
You are beaten to earth? Well, well what's that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there - that's disgrace.
The harder you're thrown, why the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts;
It's how did you fight and why?
And though you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why the critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he's slow or spry,
It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,
But only, how did you die?
Edmund Vance Cooke
This poem captures Ewa's feelings on religion and humanism.
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head,
And with a look mad of all sweet accord
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?"said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee then,
Write me as one who loves his fellowmen."
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And,lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!
James Henry Leigh Hunt
I'd Like I'd like to know,
What this whole show,
Is all about,
Before it's out.
Piet Hein
T.T.T. Put up in a place
where it's easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
T.T.T.
When you fell how depressingly
slowly you climb.
it's well to remember that
Things Take Time.
Piet Hein
Invictus Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds,and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley
Jenny Kissed Me Jenny Kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I'm weary, say I', sad;
Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I'm growing old, but add -
Jenny kissed me!
James Henry Leigh Hunt
The Importance of details
and small accruements.Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean,
And the pleasant land.
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
For want of a show, the horse was lost,
For want of a horse, the rider was lost,
For want of a rider, the battle was lost,
For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost,
All for the want of a horseshoe nail.
From The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam The moving finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it.
Edward Fitzgerald
Success Is Counted Sweetest Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed
To comprehend a nectar
Requires a sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear, of victory,
As he defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear.
Emily Dickinson
The Moron See the happy moron,
He doesn't give a damn.
I wish I were a moron ñ
My God, perhaps I am!
Soliloquy from Hamlet To Be or not to be; that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
that flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die; to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveler returns - puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
Bill Shakespeare
The Hunter The hunter crouches in his blind.
'Neath camouflage of every kind.
This grown-up man, with luck and pluck,
Is hoping to outwit a duck.
Ogden Nash.
The Rainy Day The day is cold and dark and dreary,
It rains, and the wind is never weary.
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
And at every breath, the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold and dark and dreary,
It rains, and the wind is never weary.
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
And the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the day is dark and dreary.
Be still sad heart, and cease your pining,
Behind the cloud is the sun still shining,
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Longfellow
Ewa's birthday was April 24, 1955
Always Marry an April Girl Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy.
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true -
I love April, I love you.
Ogden Nash.
On Life On life, the too-well loved,
the too-little lived.
I think too much when I am moved,
When I am grieved.
On the green outrage of Spring,
And the colored country of Fall,
I must ask of each loved thing,
Why I of all,
Earth's green and gold am gray.
I have wondered, I have wanted to know.
I have questioned all that stay,
Why I must go.
I have thought: Why are things so?
I have wondered time and again,
I have begged of those that go,
Why I must remain
To learn that the goer away
Takes with him more than he leaves.
That it is lonelier to stay.
And life, not death, that grieves.
Carleton Drewry (Poet Laureate of Virginia)
My Candle Burns at Both Ends My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends ñ
It gives a lovely light!
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Ozymandias I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
From Casey at the Bat ....
Then from the gladdened multitude went up a joyous yell
It rumbled in the mountaintops, it rattled in the dell;
It struck upon the hillside and rebounded on the flat;
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
...
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt,
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt;
Then when the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance glanced in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
....
The sneer is gone from Casey's lis, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He pounds with cruel vengeance his bat upon the plate;
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing,and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.
Ernest Lawrence Thayer
Somewhere I have Never Travelled somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
E. E. Cummings
On Enduring For every ailment under the sun,
There be a cure - or there be none.
If there be one, try and find it.
If there be none, then never mind it.
Mother Goose
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I can not change,
The courage to change those things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
--
Oh to confront night, storms,
Hunger, ridicule, accident, rebuffs,
As the trees and animals do.
--
What can't be cured
Must be endured.