मिर्ज़ा ग़ालिब -- उम्र भर ग़ालिब यही भूल करता रहा

उम्र भर ग़ालिब यही भूल करता रहा,
धुल चेहरे पे थी और आईना साफ़ करता रहा

Robert Browning -- Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

Soliloquy Of The Spanish Cloister

I.

Gr-r-r-- there go, my heart's abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God's blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims--
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!

II.

At the meal we sit together:
Salve tibi! I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt:
What's the Latin name for "parsley"?
What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout?

III.

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we're furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps--
Marked with L. for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

IV.

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
-- Can't I see his dead eye glow,
Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?
(That is, if he'd let it show!)

V.

When he finishes refection,
Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu's praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange-pulp--
In three sips the Arian frustrate;
While he drains his at one gulp.

VI.

Oh, those melons? If he's able
We're to have a feast! so nice!
One goes to the Abbot's table,
All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange! And I, too, at such trouble,
Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

VII.

There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails:
If I trip him just a-dying,
Sure of heaven as sure can be,
Spin him round and send him flying
Off to hell, a Manichee?

VIII.

Or, my scrofulous French novel
On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:
If I double down its pages
At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in't?

IX.

Or, there's Satan!---one might venture
Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
As he'd miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine...
'St, there's Vespers! Plena gratia
Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r-- you swine!

Alan Patrick Herbert -- Ninth Wicket

A.P. Herbert -- Ninth Wicket


The bowling looks exceptionally sound,
The wicket seems unusually worn,
The balls fly up or run along the ground;
I rather wish that I had not been born.
I have been sitting here since two o' clock;
My pads are both inelegant and hot;
I do not want what people call my 'knock',
And this pavilion is a sultry spot.
I shall not win one clap or word of praise,
I know that I shall bat like a baboon;
And I can think of many better ways
In which to spend a summer afternoon.
I might be swimming in a crystal pool;
I might be wooing some delicious dame;
I might be drinking something long and cool--
I can't imagine why I play this game.
Why is the wicket seven miles away,
And why have I to walk it all alone?
I hope the Bottle's bat will drive today--
I ought to buy a weapon of my own.
I wonder if this walk will ever cease;
They should provide a motor-car or crane
To drop the batsman on the popping-crease
And, when he's out, convey him back again.
Is it a dream? Can this be truly me,
Alone and friendless in a waste of grass?
The fielding side are sniggering, I see,
And long-leg sort of shudders as I pass.
How very small and funny I must look!
I only hope that no one knows my name.
I might be in a hammock with a book--
I can't imagine why I play this game.

Well, here we are. We feel a little ill.
What is this pedant of an umpire at?
Middle and off, or centre-- what you will;
It cannot matter where I park the bat.
I look around me in a knowing way
To show that I am not to be cajoled;
I shall play forward gracefully and pray...
I have played forward and I am not bowled.
I do not like the wicket-keeper's face,
And why are all these fielders crowding round?
The bowler makes an imbecile grimace,
And mid-off makes a silly whistling sound.
These innuendoes I could do without;
They mean to say the ball defied the bat.
They indicate I was nearly out;
Well, darn their impudence! I know all that.
Why I am standing in this comic pose,
Hemmed in by men that I should like to maim?
I might be lying in a punt with Rose--
I can't imagine why I play this game.

And there are people sitting over there 
Who fondly hope that I shall make a run;
They cannot guess how blinding is the glare;
They do not know the ball is like a bun.
But, courage, heart! We have survived a ball;
I pat the pitch to show that it is bad;
We are not such a rabbit, after all;
Now we shall show them what is what, my lad!
The second ball is very, very swift;
It breaks and stands up steeply in the air;
It looks at me, and I could swear it sniffed;
I gesture at it, but it is not there.
Ah, what a ball! Mind you, I do not say
That Bradman, Hobbs and Ranji in his prime,
Rolled into one, and that one on his day,
Might not have got a bat to it in time...
But long-stop's looking for my middle-stump,
And I am walking in a world of shame;
My captain has addressed me as a chump--
I can't imagine why I play this game.

PB Shelley -- Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single,

All things by a law divine

In one another's being mingle—

Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdain'd its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea—

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?