Richard Aldington, 'Images'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Images

I
Like a gondola of green scented fruits
Drifting along the dank canals at Venice,
You, O exquisite one,
Have entered my desolate city.

II
The blue smoke leaps
Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing.
So my love leaps forth towards you,
Vanishes and is renewed.

III
A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky
When the sunset is faint vermilion
In the mist among the tree-boughs,
Art thou to me.

IV
As a young beech-tree on the edge of a forest
Stands still in the evening,
Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air
And seems to fear the stars—
So are you still and so tremble.

V
The red deer are high on the mountain,
They are beyond the last pine trees.
And my desires have run with them.

VI
The flower which the wind has shaken
Is soon filled again with rain;
So does my mind fill slowly with misgiving
Until you return.

By Richard Aldington

'World Below The Brine' by Walt Whitman

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

World Below the Brine
by Walt Whitman


The world below the brine;
Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—
the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold—
the play of light through the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—
and the aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling
close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting
with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard,
and the sting-ray;
Passions there—wars, pursuits, tribes—sight in those ocean-depths—
breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do;
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings
like us, who walk this sphere;
The change onward from ours, to that of beings who walk other spheres.