The Name – Alexander Pushkin

What is my name to you? ‘T will die:
a wave that has but rolled to reach
with a lone splash a distant beach;
or in the timbered night a cry …

‘T will leave a lifeless trace among
names on your tablets: the design
of an entangled gravestone line
in an unfathomable tongue.

What is it then? A long-dead past,
lost in the rush of madder dreams,
upon your soul it will not cast
Mnemosyne’s pure tender beams.

But if some sorrow comes to you,
utter my name with sighs, and tell
the silence: “Memory is true -
there beats a heart wherein I dwell.”

A Lost Chord – Adelaide Procter

Seated one day at the Organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.

I do not know what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an Angel’s Psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexéd meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.

I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the Organ,
And entered into mine.

It may be that Death’s bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,
It may be that only in Heaven
I shall hear that grand Amen.

Threnody – Dorothy Parker

Lilacs blossom just as sweet
Now my heart is shattered.
If I bowled it down the street,
Who’s to say it mattered?
If there’s one that rode away
What would I be missing?
Lips that taste of tears, they say,
Are the best for kissing.

Eyes that watch the morning star
Seem a little brighter;
Arms held out to darkness are
Usually whiter.
Shall I bar the strolling guest,
Bind my brow with willow,
When, they say, the empty breast
Is the softer pillow?

That a heart falls tinkling down,
Never think it ceases.
Every likely lad in town
Gathers up the pieces.
If there’s one gone whistling by
Would I let it grieve me?
Let him wonder if I lie;
Let him half believe me.

The Wombat – Ogden Nash

The wombat lives across the seas,
Among the far Antipodes.
He may exist on nuts and berries,
Or then again, on missionaries;
His distant habitat precludes
Conclusive knowledge of his moods,
But I would not engage the wombat
In any form of mortal combat.

When You are Old – W.B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

After – Philip Bourke Marston

A little time for laughter,
A little time to sing,
A little time to kiss and cling,
And no more kissing after.

A little while for scheming
Love’s unperfected schemes;
A little time for golden dreams,
Then no more any dreaming.

A little while ’twas given
To me to have thy love;
Now, like a ghost, alone I move
About a ruined heaven.

A little time for speaking,
Things sweet to say and hear;
A time to seek, and find thee near,
Then no more any seeking.

A little time for saying
Words the heart breaks to say;
A short, sharp time wherein to pray,
Then no more need for praying;

But long, long years to weep in,
And comprehend the whole
Great grief that desolates the soul,
And eternity to sleep in.

Fallen Angels – Eric Weaver

Dealers and pimps come out after dark
Crack boys and hookers under street light
Meth heads and junkies looking to score
Old men lay wasted, outside the liquor store
Pleasures are given behind a car door
Fallen angels, fallen to night

Young girls having babies
Boyfriends in gangs
Wear the wrong colors, dead with a bang
City streets so dangerous, the police dare not go
City streets of violence ,how will the children grow
Fallen angels, fallen to fright

Houses fall abandoned, boarded windows and doors
Factories no longer open, churches sing no more
Bars on the windows, is it a prison or a store
A crack baby found in the garbage
A city cries out in shame
Fallen angels, fallen to blight