Countée Cullen, 'I Have A Rendezvous With Life'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

I Have A Rendezvous With Life

I have a rendezvous with Life,
In days I hope will come,
Ere youth has sped, and strength of mind,
Ere voices sweet grow dumb.
I have a rendezvous with Life,
When Spring's first heralds hum.
Sure some would cry it's better far
To crown their days with sleep
Than face the road, the wind and rain,
To heed the calling deep.
Though wet nor blow nor space I fear,
Yet fear I deeply, too,
Lest Death should meet and claim me ere
I keep Life's rendezvous.

by Countée Cullen

'Conaria and Co.' by Walter Garstang

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Conaria And Co.

Conaria's an Actinula, Vellela's little daughter,
Reared by a Medusa nurse in dark abyssal water,
But Coney said, "This dismal den is no abode for me!
I mean to rise, ev'n if I have to float a company!"

Her stiff and useless larval arms she thereon cast away,
And sprouted zooids round her, some 3 or 4 a day;
These fed her well, perhaps exceeding normal Carid doses
(Or was it an 'unsteady state' in the rate of her osmosis?)

In any case, whate'er the cause, some gas got in her float,
And things began to happen which it scared them all to note:
Familiar phosphorescent glows went down or faded dimmer,
It seemed less cold, and now and then faint light above would glimmer;

Strange creatures sank, but Coney's stock was clearly on the rise,
And soaring - through the Photic Zone - until with glad surprise
Day changed to night, and night to day, and with a shock the more
They broke the waving surface as a blue Siphonophore!

With an air-filled float and sail aslant upon a sparkling sea,
Conaria merged her little stock in Vellela, L.t.d.!

By Walter Garstang
From 'Larval forms, and other zoological verses'

"Naming of Parts", by Henry Reed

[med_cat]

LESSONS OF THE WAR

To Alan Michell

Vixi duellis nuper idoneus
Et militavi non sine gloria

I. NAMING OF PARTS

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

( This is the safety catch... )