(no subject)

[goldenboat.livejournal.com]

I can but why should I go
By Shakti Chattopadhyay

I think I should turn around and stand
So much black I have smeared with these two hands,
all these years!
I have never thought of you as you really are.
Now when I stand beside the pit at night.
The moon calls out:Come!
Now when I stand drowsy on the Ganga's bank,
The wood of the pyre calls :Come!

I can go.
I can go any way I want to.
But why should I?
I shall plant a kiss on my child's face.

Go, I will.
But not now.
I shall take you all along.
I will not go alone before my time.

Robert Service, 'The Ballad of the Leather Medal'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

The Ballad of the Leather Medal

Only a Leather Medal, hanging there on the wall,
Dingy and frayed and faded, dusty and worn and old;
Yet of my humble treasures I value it most of all,
And I wouldn't part with that medal if you gave me its weight in gold.

Read the inscription: For Valour - presented to Millie MacGee.
Ah! how in mem'ry it takes me back to the "auld lang syne,"
When Millie and I were sweethearts, and fair as a flower was she -
Yet little I dreamt that her bosom held the heart of a heroine.

( Listen! I'll tell you about it... An orphan was Millie MacGee, )

by Robert Service