Take heart, Prytherch.
Over you the planets stand,
And have seen more ills than yours.
This canker was in the bone
Before man bent to his image
In the pool’s glass. Violence has been
And will be again. Between better
And worse is no bad place
For a labourer, whose lot is to seem
Stationary in traffic so fast.
Turn aside, I said; do not turn back.
There is no forward and no back
In the fields, only the year’s two
Solstices, and patience between.
by R. S. Thomas
from Pieta (1966)
The lonely man is the weakest one.
Not because he is alone but because
He is denying what he is carrying
within himself.
Our soul, getting deeper, is the broad
river of life.
The path on which you are walking alone,
is leading away from yourself.
by Pär Fabian Lagerkvist (1891 – 1974), Sweden
To earthly solace, heart, be not a prey,
To wife and home do not attach yourself,
Take the bread out of your child’s mouth,
And to a stranger give the bread away.
Become the humblest servant to the man
Who was your blackest enemy,
Call by your brother’s name the forest wolf,
And do not ask God for anything.
– by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (1922)
– from Anno Domini MCMXXI translation by D. M. Thomas
Neither by cart nor boat
Could you have got here.
On rotten snow
The deep water;
Farmsteads marooned and
Ah! that morose
Soul, that Robinson,
Is so close.
How often can
He inspect sledge and skis,
Return to the divan
To sit and wait for me?
And his short spur grinds
Sheer through the vile
Rug. Now mirrors learn
Not to expect smiles.
– by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (1916)
– from Белая стая (White Flock, 1917) translation by D. M. Thomas
‘Brother Square-Toes’ – Rewards and Fairies
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 impostors 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 your 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!
by Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)
Written in 1895
First published in Rewards and Fairies 1910
Rambling At The Bridge Head 