ÉTRANGES ÉTRANGERS, Jacques Prévert

Kabyles de la Chapelle et des quais de Javel

Hommes de pays loin

Cobayes des colonies

Doux petits musiciens

Soleils adolescents de la porte d’Italie

Boumians de la porte de Saint-Ouen

Apatrides d’Aubervilliers

Brûleurs des grandes ordures de la ville de Paris

Ébouillanteurs des bêtes trouvées mortes sur pied

Au beau milieu des rues

Tunisiens de Grenelle

Embauchés débauchés

Manœuvres désœuvrés

Polacks du Marais du Temple des Rosiers

Cordonniers de Cordoue soutiers de Barcelone

Pêcheurs des Baléares ou du cap Finistère

Rescapés de Franco

Et déportés de France et de Navarre

Pour avoir défendu en souvenir de la vôtre

La liberté des autres.

 

Esclaves noirs de Fréjus

Tiraillés et parqués

Au bord d’une petite mer

Où peu vous vous baignez

Esclaves noirs de Fréjus

Qui évoquez chaque soir

Dans les locaux disciplinaires

Avec une vieille boîte à cigares

Et quelques bouts de fil de fer

Tous les échos de vos villages

Tous les oiseaux de vos forêts

Et ne venez dans la capitale

Que pour fêter au pas cadencé

La prise de la Bastille le quatorze juillet.

 

Enfants du Sénégal

Départriés expatriés et naturalisés.

Enfants indochinois

Jongleurs aux innocents couteaux

Qui vendiez autrefois aux terrasses des cafés

De jolis dragons d’or faits de papier plié

Enfants trop tôt grandis et si vite en allés

Qui dormez aujourd’hui de retour au pays

Le visage dans la terre

Et des hommes incendiaires labourant vos rizières.

On vous a renvoyé

La monnaie de vos papiers dorés

On vous a retourné

Vos petits couteaux dans le dos.

 

Étranges étrangers

 

Vous êtes de la ville

Vous êtes de sa vie

Même si mal en vivez

Même si vous en mourez.
“Big Bang Theory Theme” (Just because I love the series and always wondered)Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,

Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait…

The Earth began to cool,

The autotrophs began to drool,

Neanderthals developed tools,

We built a wall (we built the pyramids),

Math, science, history, unraveling the mystery,

That all started with the big bang (Bang)!
“Since the dawn of man” is really not that long,

As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song.

A fraction of a second and the elements were made.

The bipeds stood up straight,

The dinosaurs all met their fate,

They tried to leap but they were late

And they all died (they froze their asses off)

The oceans and Pangaea

See ya wouldn’t wanna be ya

Set in motion by the same big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!
It’s expanding ever outward but one day

It will pause and start to go the other way.

Collapsing ever inward, we won’t be here, it won’t be heard

Our best and brightest figure that it’ll make an even bigger bang!
Australopithecus would really have been sick of us

Debating how we’re here, they’re catching deer (we’re catching viruses)

Religion or astronomy (Encarta Deuteronomy)

It all started with the big bang!
Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology

It all started with the big bang!

It all started with the big… BANG!
Towards a Dialogical Linguistics of the Moon

She sat on the grass breastfeeding her baby, while looking at the moon.

She kept looking at the moon: The whole story up till now unrecognizable.

The moon here is not her moon. Her moon instead something dialogical.

Her baby’s continuous sighs distracted her, so she couldn’t focus on

the moon. Those sighs meant NO point of view. What’s the point in

a story that pays NO attention to her point of view? No harmony. Not

enough hormones. Just nostalgia and moans—Just merciless headlines. NO

communication. Everything is different. Once again she looked at

the moon, while holding a broken twig and orienting to an unknown

orientation. Is this what she’s looking for—something new, a moon less

shiny than her own moon, her own moon, her own moon, a land devoid of

her own utterances? Or is it another kind of death, a final echo, a final

simulacrum of a voice? But to whom the moon beams pour down onto

the grass? Really to whom the moon beams change? Then there was silence.

(Ali Znaidi)
Enchaînée ? Coin coin…Moi qui ne participe jamais à aucune chaîne, j’ai reçu le message suivant :

Dear friends,

We’re starting a collective, constructive, and hopefully uplifting exchange.

It’s a one-time thing and we hope you will participate.

We have picked those we think would be willing and make it fun.

Please send a poem to the person whose name is in position 1 below (even if you don’t know him or her). It should be a favourite text/ verse/ meditation/quote. Don’t agonise over it…
1.name

email

2. Name

E-mail

After you’ve sent the short poem/verse/quote/etc. to the person in position 1, and only that person, copy this letter into a new email.

Move my name to position 1, and put your name in position 2 . Only my name and your name should show in the new email. Send it to 20 friends BCC (blind copy).

If you cannot do this in five days, let us know so it will be fair to those participating. Seldom does anyone drop out because we all need new pleasures. The turnaround is fast, as there are only two names on the list, and you only have to do it once.

How nice to receive a load of poetry on a dreary weekday morning!
Peace,

And  although  I never do such things….I gave in because this time it was seemed very personal and really quite safe. The resultis rather   amazing.  I therefore decided to share what I received with all of you:

“Daphné,

Comme une étoile filante

L’énergie te fait avancer

Comme une étoile filante

Tu brilles dans l’obscurité

Comme une étoile filante

qui un instant nous captive

En un voeux qui se réalise”

Alice Sauthier

“You can’t always get want you want

You can’t always get what you want

You can’t always get what you want

But if you try sometimes you’ll find

You get what you need…”

“There are holes in the sky where the rain gets in

But they’re ever so small that’s why rain’s so thin.”
“Your Mother is always with you. She’s the whisper of the leaves as you walk down the street. She’s the smell of certain foods you remember, flowers you pick, the fragrance of life itself. She’s the cool hand on your brow when you’re not feeling well. She’s your breath in the air on a cold winter’s day. She is the sound of the rain that lulls you to sleep, the colors of a rainbow, she is Christmas morning. Your mother lives inside your laughter: She’s the place you came from, your first home, and she’s the map you follow with every step you take. She’s our first love, your first friend, even your first enemy., but nothing on earth can separate you not time, not space… not even death.”UNKNOWN
“Mais tout comme les mers trament d’obscurs échanges

Dans ce monde poreux il est tout aussi vrai

D’affirmer que chaque homme s’est baigné dans le Gange”

Jorge Luis Borge, “Poème du quatrième élément” in L’Autre, le même.

“Replace your fear of the unknown with curiosity”
“No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.”
― Maya Angelou

Bluebird“there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I’m not going

to let anybody see

you.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I pour whiskey on him and inhale

cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders

and the grocery clerks

never know that

he’s

in there.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say,

stay down, do you want to mess

me up?

you want to screw up the

works?

you want to blow my book sales in

Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too clever, I only let him out

at night sometimes

when everybody’s asleep.

I say, I know that you’re there,

so don’t be

sad.

then I put him back,

but he’s singing a little

in there, I haven’t quite let him

die

and we sleep together like

that

with our

secret pact

and it’s nice enough to

make a man

weep, but I don’t

weep, do

you?”
-The Last Night of the Earth Poems, Charles Bukowksi (1992)

La Complainte du Phoque , Beau Dommage
Je Reviendrai à Montréal , Paroles : Daniel Thibon Musique : Robert Charlebois

Je reviendrai à Montréal

Dans un grand Bœing bleu de mer

J’ai besoin de revoir l’hiver

Et ses aurores boréales
J’ai besoin de cette lumière

Descendue droit du Labrador

Et qui fait neiger sur l’hiver

Des roses bleues, des roses d’or
Dans le silence de l’hiver

Je veux revoir ce lac étrange

Entre le crystal et le verre

Où viennent se poser des anges
Je reviendrai à Montréal

Ecouter le vent de la mer

Se briser comme un grand cheval

Sur les remparts blancs de l’hiver
Je veux revoir le long désert

Des rues qui n’en finissent pas

Qui vont jusqu’au bout de l’hiver

Sans qu’il y ait trace de pas
J’ai besoin de sentir le froid

Mourir au fond de chaque pierre

Et rejaillir au bord des toits

Comme des glaçons de bonbons clairs
Je reviendrai à Montréal

Dans un grand Bœing bleu de mer

Je reviendrai à Montréal

Me marier avec l’hiver

Me marier avec l’hiver

Lhassa De Sela

Cliquez ici pour la vidéo

Para el fin del mundo

O el ano nuevo

Manana te mato

Manana te libro

Estoy adelante ya no

Ya no tengo miedo

Manana te digo que el amor

Que el amor se ha ido
Y después

Y después siete anos

De exilio

Por haberte tanto

Tanto mentido
Llegarás manana

Para el fin del mundo

O el ano nuevo

Mi esqueleto baila

Se atavía de nuevo

De su traje de carne

Su peinado de fuego

Salgo a encontrarte a medio

A medio camino
Y después

Y después siete anos

De exilio

Por haberte tanto

Tanto mentido
Llegarás manana

Para el fin del mundo

O el ano nuevo

El puerto se llena

De barcos de guerra

Y una lluvia fina

De cenizas cae

Salgo a encontrarte en mi traje

Mi traje de tierra
Y después

Y después siete anos de exilio

Por haberte tanto

Tanto mentido

Au chef de musique.Psaume de David.
1 Ô Dieu de ma louange, ne te tais pas.
2 Car la bouche du malfaisant et la bouche du perfide se sont ouvertes contre moi ; ils ont parlé contre moi avec une langue menteuse.
3 Ils m’ont aussi assiégé de paroles de haine ; et se sont battus contre moi sans cause.
4 En retour de mon amour, ils sont mes adversaires ; mais moi, je m’adonne à la prière.
5 Et ils m’ont rendu le mal pour le bien, et la haine pour mon amour.
6 Établis un homme malfaisant sur lui, et que Satan se tienne à sa main droite.
7 Quand il sera jugé, qu’il soit condamné, et que sa prière devienne péché.
8 Que ses jours soient peu nombreux ; qu’un autre prenne sa charge.
9 Que ses enfants soient orphelins, et sa femme veuve.
10 Que ses enfants soient continuellement vagabonds et mendient ; qu’ils cherchent leur pain loin de leurs places ravagées.
11 Que le créancier attrape tout ce qu’il a ; et que les étrangers le dépouillent de son travail.
12 Qu’il n’y ait personne qui étende sa miséricorde sur lui ; qu’il n’y ait personne qui use de faveur envers ses orphelins.
13 Que sa postérité soit retranchée ; que dans la génération suivante leur nom soit effacé.
14 Que l’iniquité de ses pères revienne en mémoire au SEIGNEUR, et que le péché de sa mère ne soit pas effacé ;
15 Qu’ils soient devant le SEIGNEUR continuellement, et qu’il retranche leur mémoire de la terre.
16 Parce qu’il ne s’est pas souvenu d’user de miséricorde, mais qu’il a persécuté le pauvre et l’homme nécessiteux, et qu’il a même tué l’homme au cœ ur brisé.
17 Puisqu’il a aimé la malédiction, qu’elle tombe sur lui ; comme la bénédiction lui a plu, qu’elle s’éloigne de lui.
18 Comme il s’est revêtu de malédiction comme d’un vêtement ; qu’elle entre dans ses entrailles comme de l’eau, et dans ses os comme de l’huile.
19 Qu’elle soit comme le vêtement qui le couvre, comme une ceinture avec laquelle il est ceint continuellement.
20 Que ce soit la récompense du SEIGNEUR, pour mes adversaires, et de ceux qui disent du mal contre mon âme.
21 Mais toi, agis pour moi, ô DIEU le Seigneur à cause de ton nom ; parce que ta miséricorde est bonne, délivre-moi.
22 Car je suis pauvre et nécessiteux, et mon cœur est blessé au-dedans de moi.
23 Je m’en vais comme l’ombre quand elle décline ; je suis lancé, ça et là, comme la sauterelle.
24 Mes genoux sont affaiblis par le jeûne ; et ma chair manque de graisse.
25 Je suis devenu pour eux un outrage ; quand ils me regardent, ils secouent leurs têtes.
26 Aide-moi ô SEIGNEUR mon Dieu ; ô sauve-moi selon ta miséricorde.
27 Afin qu’ils sachent que c’est ta main, que toi, SEIGNEUR, tu l’as fait.
28 Qu’ils maudissent, mais toi bénis ; quand ils s’élèveront, qu’ils soient honteux ; mais que ton serviteur se réjouisse.
29 Que mes adversaires soient revêtus de honte, et couverts de leur propre confusion comme d’un manteau.
30 Je louerai grandement le Seigneur de ma bouche ; oui, je le louerai parmi la multitude.
31 Car il se tiendra à la main droite du pauvre, pour le sauver de ceux qui condamnent son âme.

 L’émission Répliques d’Alain Finkielkraut (13/XII/2014, France Culture http://www.franceculture.fr/emission-repliques-la-priere-d-esther-2014-12-13) à propos de l’ouvrage récent d’Elisabeth de Fontenay que je ne lirai pas puisqu’elle critique mon Proust adoré (et m’énerve en général ) m’a remis à l’esprit cette magnifique prière d’Esther dont j’ai découvert qu’elle s’inspirait presque verbatim de celle de Louis-Isaac  Lemaistre de Sacy reproduite ci-dessus pour mémoire (Grâce en soit rendue à l’extraordinaire application Gallica! http://gallica.bnf.fr/):

Ô mon souverain Roi !
Me voici donc tremblante et seule devant toi.
Mon père mille fois m’a dit dans mon enfance
Qu’avec nous tu juras une sainte alliance,
Quand pour te faire un peuple agréable à tes yeux,
Il plut à ton amour de choisir nos aïeux.
Même tu leur promis de ta bouche sacrée,
Une postérité d’éternelle durée.
Hélas ! ce peuple ingrat a méprisé ta loi.
La nation chérie a violé sa foi.
Elle a répudié son époux, et son père,
Pour rendre à d’autres dieux un honneur adultère.
Maintenant elle sert sous un maître étranger.
Mais c’est peu d’être esclave, on la veut égorger.
Nos superbes vainqueurs insultant à nos larmes,
Imputent à leurs dieux le bonheur de leurs armes,
Et veulent aujourd’hui qu’un même coup mortel
Abolisse ton nom, ton peuple, et ton autel.
Ainsi donc un perfide, après tant de miracles,
Pourrait anéantir la foi de tes oracles ?
Ravirait aux mortels le plus cher de tes dons,
Le saint que tu promets et que nous attendons ?
Non, non, ne souffre pas que ces peuples farouches,
Ivres de notre sang, ferment les seules bouches
Qui dans tout l’univers célèbrent tes bienfaits,
Et confonds tous ces dieux qui ne furent jamais.
Pour moi, que tu retiens parmi ces infidèles,
Tu sais combien je hais leurs fêtes criminelles,
Et que je mets au rang des profanations
Leur table, leurs festins, et leurs libations ;
Que même cette pompe où je suis condamnée,
Ce bandeau dont il faut que je paraisse ornée
Dans ces jours solennels à l’orgueil dédiés,
Seule, et dans le secret je le foule à mes pieds ;
Qu’à ces vains ornements je préfère la cendre,
Et n’ai de goût qu’aux pleurs que tu me vois répandre.
J’attendais le moment marqué dans ton arrêt,
Pour oser de ton peuple embrasser l’intérêt.
Ce moment est venu. Ma prompte obéissance
Va d’un roi redoutable affronter la présence.
C’est pour toi que je marche. Accompagne mes pas
Devant ce fier lion, qui ne te connaît pas.
Commande en me voyant que son courroux s’apaise,
Et prête à mes discours un charme qui lui plaise.
Les orages, les vents, les cieux te sont soumis.
Tourne enfin sa fureur contre nos ennemis.

Because of the 70th anniversation of the Auschwitz Liberation I was reminded of the very first poetic shock which for me captured the spirit of what Jews felt during the 2nd world war:

Demain
Âgé de cent-mille ans, j’aurais encore la force
De t’attendre, o demain pressenti par l’espoir.
Le temps, vieillard souffrant de multiples entorses,
Peut gémir: neuf est le matin, neuf est le soir.

Mais depuis trop de mois nous vivons à la veille,
Nous veillons, nous gardons la lumière et le feu,
Nous parlons à voix basse et nous tendons l’oreille
A maint bruit vite éteint et perdu comme au jeu.

Or, du fond de la nuit, nous témoignons encore
De la splendeur du jour et de tous ses présents.
Si nous ne dormons pas c’est pour guetter l’aurore
Qui prouvera qu’enfin nous vivons au présent.

Robert Desnos, État de veille, 1942

I’ve just got back from wonderfully inspiring Dublin where I attended an Interdependence Day Conference, a very good vintage, I reckon! Among the wonderful participants is one charming lady I keep loving more and more as she’s so authentic, with a priceless voice and a serene attitude I simply adore, Pam Rose

She was kind enough to send me the lyrics of another marvelous and indeed extremely poetic song. I believe it belongs to this page

Bullet

As he placed me in the chamber, I could taste the sweat on his hands

He was a baby-faced Alabama boy playing soldiers in the sand

He was steady as the Tuscaloosa rain, as the cross-hairs found their mark

He whispered “Eagle eye can’t miss” cause God was on his side & in his heart

He drew in half a breath as his trigger finger squeezed back slow

I’d waited all my life for this one moment, and I was ready to go

He said “This one’s for my baby girl” the rifle cracked and I began to spin

Down the barrel and out into a couple hundred yards of Heaven

I just go where I’m told and do what I was made to do

Don’t blame me, blame the gun or blame that boy who looked a lot like you

I am lead cased in steel and I can’t hate cause I can’t feel

And I don’t care who’s right, to tell the truth

I just go where I’m told and I do what I was made to do.

Flyin through the mornin sky I was thinkin’ ’bout the night before

I overheard a worried boy ask his friends what they thought about this war

But I was destiny bound and don’t that whistling sound like a dead man’s lullaby

And I did not feel a thing when I got close enough to look him in the eye

I just go where I’m told and do what I was made to do

Don’t blame me, blame the gun or blame that man who looks a lot like you

I am lead cased in steel and I can’t hate cause I can’t feel

And I don’t care who wins, to tell the truth

I just go where I’m told and I do what I was made to do.

He was trying to load his gun while his brothers dropped like stones at his side

And I looked down at his bullets and I thought “what a wild, crazy ride”

Cause he was asking God for victory and praying for his babies back home

When I busted through his eyebrow and settled in his right temple bone

I just go where I’m told and do what I was made to do

Don’t blame me, blame the gun or blame that boy who looks a lot like you

I am lead cased in steel and I can’t hate cause I can’t feel

And I don’t care who dies, to tell the truth

I just go where I’m told and I do what I was made to do.

written by Lisa Carver

Thanks to the remarkable and multi-talented Franck Ferrand, I was reminded of the anniversary of one of my favourite author’s death…and of the beauty of his sad poem, despite his work considered light and witty. This is the dark side of a man who has known glory and fall, but who was above all graceful and charming. In the same programme, however, I heard of his rather strange attitude during the Dreyfus Affair, so invite you to ask for more if you are interested. He nevertheless remains high in my list of authors! This is also my way to cheer the inmates I was honored to meet recently in California

Here are the two versions, compliment of the Guthenberg Project…with some help from the Guardian:First version prepared by:


Faith Knowles
faith@wile.thetech.org

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

I.

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
  For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
  When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
  And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
  In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked 
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
  With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
  Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
  A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
  "That fellows got to swing."

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
  Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
  Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
  My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought 
  Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
  With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
  And so he had to die.
___
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
  By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
  And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
  Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
  The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
  Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
  And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
  Yet each man does not die.
___
He does not die a death of shame
  On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
  Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
  Into an empty place

He does not sit with silent men 
  Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
  And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
  The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
  Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
  The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
  With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
  To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
  Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
Fingering a watch whose little ticks
  Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst
  That sands one's throat, before
The hangman with his gardener's gloves
  Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
  That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
  The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
  Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
  Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
  Through a little roof of glass;
He does not pray with lips of clay
  For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
  The kiss of Caiaphas.

II.

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
  In a suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked 
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked 
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
  Its raveled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
  Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
  In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
  And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
  Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
  Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
  As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
  Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done 
  A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
  The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass
  With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look 
  So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
  Had such a debt to pay.
___
For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
  That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
  With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
  Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace
  For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
  Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer's collar take
  His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins
  When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
  Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
  To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise
  We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
  Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
  His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more
  Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
  In the black dock's dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
  In God's sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
  We had crossed each other's way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
  We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
  But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,
  Two outcast men were we:
The world had thrust us from its heart,
  And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
  Had caught us in its snare.

In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard,
  And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
  Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
  For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
  His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
  And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
  Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
  The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
  A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called
  And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
  And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
  No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
  The hangman's hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing
  No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher's doom
  Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
  And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
  To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
  Pent up in Murderers' Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
  Could help a brother's soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
  We trod the Fool's Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
  The Devil's Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
  Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
  With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
  And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
  And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
  We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
  And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
  Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
  Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
  That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
  We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
  Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
  To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
  Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
  On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
  Went shuffling through the gloom
And each man trembled as he crept
  Into his numbered tomb.
____
That night the empty corridors
  Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
  Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
  White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
  In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watcher watched him as he slept,
  And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
  With a hangman close at hand?

But there is no sleep when men must weep
  Who never yet have wept:
So we--the fool, the fraud, the knave--
  That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
  Another's terror crept.
___
Alas! it is a fearful thing
  To feel another's guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
  Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
  For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt
  Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
  Grey figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
  Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
  Mad mourners of a corpse! 
The troubled plumes of midnight were
  The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
  Was the savior of Remorse.
___
The cock crew, the red cock crew,
  But never came the day:
And crooked shape of Terror crouched,
  In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
  Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,
  Like travelers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
  Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
  The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
  Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
  They trod a saraband:
And the damned grotesques made arabesques,
  Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
  They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
  As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and loud they sang,
  For they sang to wake the dead.

"Oho!" they cried, "The world is wide,
  But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
  Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
  In the secret House of Shame."
No things of air these antics were
  That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
  And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
  Most terrible to see.
Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
  Some wheeled in smirking pairs:
With the mincing step of demirep
  Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
  Each helped us at our prayers.
___
The morning wind began to moan,
  But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
  Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
  Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
  The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning-steel
  We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
  To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars
  Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
  That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
  God's dreadful dawn was red.
___
At six o'clock we cleaned our cells, 
  At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
  The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
  Had entered in to kill.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
  Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
  Are all the gallows' need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
  To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen
  Of filthy darkness grope:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
  Or give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
  And what was dead was Hope.

For Man's grim Justice goes its way,
  And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
  It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
  The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:
  Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
  That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
  For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
  Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
  Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man's heart beat thick and quick
  Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock
  Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
  Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
  From a leper in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
  In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
  Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman's snare
  Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
  That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
  None knew so well as I:
For he who live more lives than one
  More deaths than one must die.

IV.

There is no chapel on the day
  On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain's heart is far too sick,
  Or his face is far to wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
  Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
  And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
  Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
  Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God's sweet air we went,
  But not in wonted way,
For this man's face was white with fear,
  And that man's face was grey,
And I never saw sad men who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
  In happy freedom by.

But their were those amongst us all
  Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each go his due,
  They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived
  Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time
  Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
  And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood
  And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
  With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
  The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
  And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round,
  And through each hollow mind
The memory of dreadful things
  Rushed like a dreadful wind,
An Horror stalked before each man,
  And terror crept behind.
___
The Warders strutted up and down,
  And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were spick and span,
  And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at
  By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide,
  There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
  By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
  That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man,
  Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
  Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
  Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime
  Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
  And the soft flesh by the day,
It eats the flesh and bones by turns,
  But it eats the heart alway.
___
For three long years they will not sow
  Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
  Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
  With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer's heart would taint
  Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true!  God's kindly earth
  Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
  The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
  Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
  Christ brings his will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
  Bloomed in the great Pope's sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red
  May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
  Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
  A common man's despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white,
  Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
  By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who tramp the yard
  That God's Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall
  Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit man not walk by night
  That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may not weep that lies
  In such unholy ground,

He is at peace--this wretched man--
  At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to make him mad,
  Nor does Terror walk at noon,
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
  Has neither Sun nor Moon.
___
They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
  They did not even toll
A reguiem that might have brought
  Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
  And hid him in a hole.

They stripped him of his canvas clothes,
  And gave him to the flies;
They mocked the swollen purple throat
  And the stark and staring eyes:
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
  In which their convict lies.

The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
  By his dishonored grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
  That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
  Whom Christ came down to save.

Yet all is well; he has but passed
  To Life's appointed bourne:
And alien tears will fill for him
  Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourner will be outcast men,
  And outcasts always mourn.

V.

I know not whether Laws be right,
  Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in goal
  Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
  A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law
  That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took his brother's life,
  And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
  With a most evil fan.

This too I know--and wise it were
  If each could know the same--
That every prison that men build
  Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
  How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon,
  And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
  For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
  Ever should look upon!
___
The vilest deeds like poison weeds
  Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
  That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
  And the Warder is Despair

For they starve the little frightened child
  Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
  And gibe the old and grey,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell
  Is foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
  Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
  In Humanity's machine.

The brackish water that we drink
  Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
  Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
  Wild-eyed and cries to Time.
___
But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
  Like asp with adder fight,
We have little care of prison fare,
  For what chills and kills outright
Is that every stone one lifts by day
  Becomes one's heart by night.

With midnight always in one's heart,
  And twilight in one's cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
  Each in his separate Hell,
And the silence is more awful far
  Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near
  To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
  Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
  With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life's iron chain
  Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
  And some men make no moan:
But God's eternal Laws are kind
  And break the heart of stone.
___
And every human heart that breaks,
  In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
  Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean leper's house
  With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break
  And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
  And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
  May Lord Christ enter in?
___
And he of the swollen purple throat.
  And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
  The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
  The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law
  Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
  His soul of his soul's strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
  The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
  The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
  And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
  Became Christ's snow-white seal.

VI.

In Reading gaol by Reading town
  There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
  Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
  And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
  In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
  Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
  And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
  By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

End of the first Project Gutenberg Etext of

The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

credit: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/1dad4c/

I've got better photos so just ask if you wish...but right now I'm in a rush!
***

Second Version

                I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
  For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
  When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
  And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
  In a suit of shabby gray;
A cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
  With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
  Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
  A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
  "That fellow's got to swing."

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
  Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
  Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
  My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what haunted thought
  Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
  With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved,
  And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
  By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
  And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
  Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
  The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
  Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
  And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
  Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
  On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
  Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
  Into an empty space.

He does not sit with silent men
  Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
  And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
  The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
  Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
  The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
  With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
  To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
  Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
Fingering a watch whose little ticks
  Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not feel that sickening thirst
  That sands one's throat, before
The hangman with his gardener's gloves
  Comes through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
  The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the anguish of his soul
  Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
  Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
  Through a little roof of glass:
He does not pray with lips of clay
  For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
  The kiss of Caiaphas.

                II

Six weeks the guardsman walked the yard,
  In the suit of shabby gray:
His cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step was light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
  Its ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
  Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
  In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
  And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
  Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
  Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
  As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
  Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
  A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
  The man who had to swing.

For strange it was to see him pass
  With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
  So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
  Had such a debt to pay.

The oak and elm have pleasant leaves
  That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
  With its alder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
  Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is the seat of grace
  For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
  Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer's collar take
  His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins
  When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
  Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
  To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise
  We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
  Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
  His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more
  Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
  In the black dock's dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
  For weal or woe again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
  We had crossed each other's way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
  We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
  But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,
  Two outcast men we were:
The world had thrust us from its heart,
  And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
  Had caught us in its snare.
               III

In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard,
  And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
  Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a warder walked,
  For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
  His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
  And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
  Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
  The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
  A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called,
  And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
  And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
  No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
  The hangman's day was near.

But why he said so strange a thing
  No warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher's doom
  Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
  And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
  To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
  Pent up in Murderers' Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
  Could help a brother's soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
  We trod the Fools' Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
  The Devils' Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
  Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
  With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
  And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
  And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
  We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
  And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
  Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
  Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
  That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
  We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the horrid hole
  Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
  To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
  The fellow had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
  On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
  Went shuffling through the gloom:
And I trembled as I groped my way
  Into my numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
  Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
  Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
  White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
  In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watchers watched him as he slept,
  And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
  With a hangman close at hand.

But there is no sleep when men must weep
  Who never yet have wept:
So we- the fool, the fraud, the knave-
  That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
  Another's terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
  To feel another's guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
  Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
  For the blood we had not spilt.

The warders with their shoes of felt
  Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
  Gray figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
  Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
  Mad mourners of a corse!
The troubled plumes of midnight shook
  Like the plumes upon a hearse:
And as bitter wine upon a sponge
  Was the savour of Remorse.

The gray cock crew, the red cock crew,
  But never came the day:
And crooked shapes of Terror crouched,
  In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
  Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, the glided fast,
  Like travellers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
  Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
  The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
  Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
  They trod a saraband:
And the damned grotesques made arabesques,
  Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
  They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
  As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
  For they sang to wake the dead.

"Oho!" they cried, "the world is wide,
  But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
  Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
  In the secret House of Shame."

No things of air these antics were,
  That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
  And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
  Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
  Some wheeled in smirking pairs;
With the mincing step of a demirep
  Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
  Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,
  But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
  Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
  Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
  The weeping prison wall:
Till like a wheel of turning steel
  We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
  To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars,
  Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
  That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
  God's dreadful dawn was red.

At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,
  At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
  The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
  Had entered in to kill.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
  Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
  Are all the gallows' need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
  To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen
  Of filthy darkness grope:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
  Or to give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
  And what was dead was Hope.

For Man's grim Justice goes its way
  And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
  It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong
  The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:
  Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
  That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
  For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
  Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
  Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man's heart beat thick and quick,
  Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock
  Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
  Of impotent despair,
Like the sound the frightened marshes hear
  From some leper in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
  In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
  Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman's snare
  Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
  That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
  None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
  More deaths that one must die.
                IV

There is no chapel on the day
  On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain's heart is far too sick,
  Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
  Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
  And then they rang the bell,
And the warders with their jingling keys
  Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
  Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God's sweet air we went,
  But not in wonted way,
For this man's face was white with fear,
  And that man's face was gray,
And I never saw sad men who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  We prisoners called the sky,
And at every happy cloud that passed
  In such strange freedom by.

But there were those amongst us all
  Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,
  They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived,
  Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time
  Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud
  And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,
  And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
  With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
  The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
  And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round,
  And through each hollow mind
The Memory of dreadful things
  Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
  And Terror crept behind.

The warders strutted up and down,
  And watched their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were spick and span,
  And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at,
  By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide,
  There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
  By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
  That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man,
  Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
  Naked, for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
  Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime
  Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bones by night,
  And the soft flesh by day,
It eats the flesh and bone by turns,
  But it eats the heart alway.

For three long years they will not sow
  Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
  Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
  With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer's heart would taint
  Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God's kindly earth
  Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but glow more red,
  The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
  Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
  Christ brings His will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
  Bloomed in the great Pope's sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red
  May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
  Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
  A common man's despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white,
  Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
  By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who tramp the yard
  That God's Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall
  Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit may not walk by night
  That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may but weep that lies
  In such unholy ground,

He is at peace- this wretched man-
  At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to make him mad,
  Nor does Terror walk at noon,
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
  Has neither Sun nor Moon.

They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
  They did not even toll
A requiem that might have brought
  Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
  And hid him in a hole.

The warders stripped him of his clothes,
  And gave him to the flies:
They mocked the swollen purple throat,
  And the stark and staring eyes:
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
  In which the convict lies.

The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
  By his dishonoured grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
  That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
  Whom Christ came down to save.

Yet all is well; he has but passed
  To  Life's appointed bourne:
And alien tears will fill for him
  Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners be outcast men,
  And outcasts always mourn.
                V

I know not whether Laws be right,
  Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
  Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
  A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law
  That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took His brother's life,
  And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
  With a most evil fan.

This too I know- and wise it were
  If each could know the same-
That every prison that men build
  Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
  How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon,
  And blind the goodly sun:
And the do well to hide their Hell,
  For in it things are done
That Son of things nor son of Man
  Ever should look upon!

The vilest deeds like poison weeds
  Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
  That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
  And the warder is Despair.

For they starve the little frightened child
  Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
  And gibe the old and gray,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
  And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell
  Is a foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
  Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
  In Humanity's machine.

The brackish water that we drink
  Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
  Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
  Wild-eyed, and cries to Time.

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
  Like asp with adder fight,
We have little care of prison fare,
  For what chills and kills outright
Is that every stone one lifts by day
  Becomes one's heart by night.

With midnight always in one's heart,
  And twilight in one's cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
  Each in his separate Hell,
And the silence is more awful far
  Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near
  To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
  Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
  With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life's iron chain
  Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
  And some men make no moan:
But God's eternal Laws are kind
  And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,
  In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
  Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean leper's house
  With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy they whose hearts can break
  And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
  And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
  May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat,
  And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
  The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
  The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law
  Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
  His soul of his soul's strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
  The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
  The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
  And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
  Became Christ's snow-white seal.
                VI

In Reading gaol by Reading town
  There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
  Eaten by teeth of flame,
In a burning winding-sheet he lies,
  And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
  In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
  Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
  And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
  By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

                         C. 3. 3.

             THE END

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The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

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Full text of “Ballad of Reading Gaol“

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The Ballad of Reading Gaol

by

Oscar Wilde

July, 1995  [Etext #301]

In Memoriam
C.T.W.
Sometime Trooper of the Royal Horse Guards.
Obiit H.M. Prison, Reading, Berkshire,
July 7th, 1896
Presented by Project Gutenberg on the 99th Anniversary.

The Project Gutenberg Etext Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol
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In Memoriam
C.T.W.
Sometime Trooper of the Royal Horse Guards.
Obiit H.M. Prison, Reading, Berkshire,
July 7th, 1896
Presented by Project Gutenberg on the 99th Anniversary.

Because I’m in Thailand and that’s how I feel right now…this marvelous Baudelaire Poem, with a few english translations I found on the Fleurs du Mal Website.

L’invitation au voyage

Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur
D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Des meubles luisants,
Polis par les ans,
Décoreraient notre chambre;
Les plus rares fleurs
Mêlant leurs odeurs
Aux vagues senteurs de l’ambre,
Les riches plafonds,
Les miroirs profonds,
La splendeur orientale,
Tout y parlerait
À l’âme en secret
Sa douce langue natale.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l’humeur est vagabonde;
C’est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu’ils viennent du bout du monde.
— Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D’hyacinthe et d’or;
Le monde s’endort
Dans une chaude lumière.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

— Charles Baudelaire

Invitation to the Voyage

My child, my sister,
Think of the rapture
Of living together there!
Of loving at will,
Of loving till death,
In the land that is like you!
The misty sunlight
Of those cloudy skies
Has for my spirit the charms,
So mysterious,
Of your treacherous eyes,
Shining brightly through their tears.

There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.

Gleaming furniture,
Polished by the years,
Will ornament our bedroom;
The rarest flowers
Mingling their fragrance
With the faint scent of amber,
The ornate ceilings,
The limpid mirrors,
The oriental splendor,
All would whisper there
Secretly to the soul
In its soft, native language.

There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.

See on the canals
Those vessels sleeping.
Their mood is adventurous;
It’s to satisfy
Your slightest desire
That they come from the ends of the earth.
— The setting suns
Adorn the fields,
The canals, the whole city,
With hyacinth and gold;
The world falls asleep
In a warm glow of light.

There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Invitation to the Voyage

My daughter, my sister,
Consider the vista
Of living out there, you and I,
To love at our leisure,
Then, ending our pleasure,
In climes you resemble to die.
There the suns, rainy-wet,
Through clouds rise and set
With the selfsame enchantment to charm me
That my senses receive
From your eyes, that deceive,
When they shine through your tears to disarm me.

There’ll be nothing but beauty, wealth, pleasure,
With all things in order and measure.

With old treasures furnished,
By centuries burnished,
To gleam in the shade of our chamber,
While the rarest of flowers
Vaguely mix through the hours
Their own with the perfume of amber:
Each sumptuous ceiling,
Each mirror revealing
The wealth of the East, will be hung
So the part and the whole
May speak to the soul
In its native, indigenous tongue.

There’ll be nothing but beauty, wealth, pleasure,
With all things in order and measure.

On the channels and streams
See each vessel that dreams
In its whimsical vagabond way,
Since its for your least whim
The oceans they swim
From the ends of the night and the day.
The sun, going down, With its glory will crown
Canals, fields, and cities entire,
While the whole earth is rolled
In the jacinth and gold
Of its warming and radiant fire.

There’ll be nothing but beauty, wealth, pleasure
With all things in order and measure.

— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

Invitation to the Voyage

Think, would it not be
Sweet to live with me
All alone, my child, my love? —
Sleep together, share
All things, in that fair
Country you remind me of?
Charming in the dawn
There, the half-withdrawn
Drenched, mysterious sun appears
In the curdled skies,
Treacherous as your eyes
Shining from behind their tears.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

We should have a room
Never out of bloom:
Tables polished by the palm
Of the vanished hours
Should reflect rare flowers
In that amber-scented calm;
Ceilings richly wrought,
Mirrors deep as thought,
Walls with eastern splendor hung,
All should speak apart
To the homesick heart
In its own dear native tongue.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

See, their voyage past,
To their moorings fast,
On the still canals asleep,
These big ships; to bring
You some trifling thing
They have braved the furious deep.
— Now the sun goes down,
Tinting dyke and town,
Field, canal, all things in sight,
Hyacinth and gold;
All that we behold
Slumbers in its ruddy light.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

Invitation to the Voyage

My child mistress/mother sister/dream
How acceptable all things would be
Were we to live in that land where
The slow and the long, short and the strong

Die in the dance of being less than one another
In a perpetual summer of imageless desire.
Flagellated and forgotten suns
Drink in the step of my azure lost skies
And move to mysterylessness our chemical miseries
Within which the treadling eyes of indefiniteness
Are no more than the tears of the damned.
Take from my heart, a platinum measure
Free of solitude’s false grace
And awkward adolescent pleasures.
Here is the furniture
That caresses the dust of the years
And counts the wrinkled set into the brain
On fingers that have made their own doom.
Evil the eyes that look back at us in dreams,
Evil the touch of the deaths that have not loved us
Evil the sorrow which shelters itself from release
And the evils accumulate
Leaving us idle and alone
Though an Eastern splendor,
An Eastern hatred of the idea of loss
Eddies in the river of slime
That has not won us.
Hidden from the waves in still canals
We sit in a small boat that refuses
To set forth.
To satisfy need,
To accommodate our need of forever,
We sit in the boat
And wait for a clearer sky,
A more propitious moment to launch
While thinking of Cortez’
Miraculous slaughter of and victory over
The children of the sun.

— Will Schmitz

muerte de Antoñito el camborio
My friend Claude Pierre Senouf posted this splendid Lorca poem on 7 October 2012
Voces de muerte sonaron
cerca del Guadalquivir.
Voces antiguas que cercan
voz de clavel varonil.
Les clavó sobre las botas
mordiscos de jabalí.
En la lucha daba saltos
jabonados de delfín.
Bañó con sangre enemiga
su corbata carmesí,
pero eran cuatro puñales
y tuvo que sucumbir.
Cuando las estrella clavan
rejones al agua gris,
cuando los erales sueñan
verónicas de alhelí,
voces de muerte sonaron
cerca del Guadalquivir.

Antonio Torres Heredia.
Camborio de dura crin,
moreno de verde luna,
voz de clavel varonil:
¿Quién te ha quitado la vida
cerca del Guadalquivir?
Mis cuatro primos Heredias
Hijos de Benamejí.
Lo que en otros no envidiaban,
ya lo envidiaban en mí.

Zapatos color corinto,
medallones de marfil,
y este cutis amasado
con aceituna y jazmín.
¡Ay, Antoñito el Camborio,
digno de una Emperatriz!
Acuérdate de la Virgen
porque te vas a morir.
¡Ay Federico García,
llama a la guardia civil!
Ya mi talle se ha quebrado
como caña de maíz.

Tres golpes de sangre tuvo
y se murió de perfil.
Viva moneda que nunca
se volverá a repetir.
Un ángel marchoso pone
su cabeza en un cojín.
Otros de rubor cansado
encendieron un candil.
Y cuando los cuatro primos
llegan a Benamejí,
voces de muerte cesaron
cerca del Guadalquivir.
(Traduction française)

En l’honneur d’une amie disparue trop tôt cette amazing song:

Amazing Grace Lyrics (via Constitution.org)
John Newton (1725-1807)

Stanza 6 anon.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
‘Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we’ve been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Le Président Obama en a donné le 26 juin 2015 la plus extraordinaire version dont on se souviendra longtemps et qui l’incarnera dans l’histoire.

Et cliquez ici pour écouter la merveilleuse musique interprétée par Judy Collins.

Je suis en train de réécouter la merveilleuse émission de Guillaume Gallienne sur France Inter. Je podcaste son émission Ca ne peut pas faire du mal sur Le Printemps des poètes…qui débute par ce qui a été toute mon enfance l’un de mes auteurs chéris, Jacques Prévert. Et en particuler son…Cancre (allez savoir pourquoi et vous en apprendrez bien plus sur moi;-)

Image provenant de la page Triche et Technologie de l’U. de Laval…ça me s’invente pas
http://wikini.ten.laval.tuxcafe.org/wakka.php?wiki=TechnologieTricherie

Le Cancre, de Jacques Prévert. (écoutez l’émission, la lecture de Serge Reggiani est merveilleuse…)

Il dit non avec la tête
Mais il dit oui avec le coeur
Il dit oui à ce qu’il aime
Il dit non au professeur.

Il est debout, on le questionne
et tous les problèmes sont posés
Soudain le fou-rire le prend
et il efface tout, les chiffres et les mots,
Les dates et les noms,
Les phrases et les pièges

Et, malgré les menaces du maître,
sous les huées des enfants prodiges,
avec des craies de toutes les couleurs

sur le tableau noir du malheur,
Il dessine le visage du bonheur

Imagine, John Lennon, Rise (ΓΚΡΟΥΝΝΙ)By Yorgos Soukoulis, Mourir pour des Idées(Georges Brassens), Ne me regarde pas comme ça, par Robin et ses copains, Brise marine de Stéphane Mallarmé, Shylock’s monologue, in the Merchant of Venice by the Greatest of All…., Le bâteau ivre, Arthur Rimbaud, Sonnet 142 by William Shakespeare (aka the Greatest of all), William Blake, Jerusalem

Imagine, by John Lennon

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

Rise (ΓΚΡΟΥΝΝΙ)

I discovered the existence of the Arvanitika, a language still spoken by a handful of people in Greece and Cyprus. A very endangered language indeed! Probably in the same situation as the lady in this beautiful poem, as she complains that her “own people have forgotten me,
cast me aside, and now seek to bury” her and to whom we long to say “Rise, Rise”. You will find more information about the author and tranlator on the Oxford’s Modern Poetry in Translation page. I particularly salute the fact that it dedicated the whole issue to endangered languages. I wish it became a worldwide movement. As the crisis and the world go bad, we’ve never been in more need of beauty and poetry! Please find under the English translation, the text in this Arvanitica language.

Translation by Peter Constantine

I had a dream last night,
I saw a woman with wild eyes,
in her left arm she held an infant,
in her right hand a double-edged sword.
She glared at me and said,
‘Why have you forgotten me?’
And I asked in wonder,
‘Who are you? I know I have seen you somewhere.’
‘I am one of the women a foreign man
captured with paint on a canvas
so that I can be seen by generations to come.
My own people have forgotten me,
cast me aside, and now seek to bury me.
But you? Why did you forget me?’
‘You must be one of the women of Souli
who, to keep your honour from the enemy,
took your children in your arms
and singing ‘Farewell, poor world’,
and dancing our ancient dances,
threw yourselves and your children from the rocks,
writing sacrifice and history.
Women of Souli and Zalongu, rise!
Leave the blood you shed as icons on the rocks
so that our unborn generations can pray to them.
Take your infants, now grown, and fly high into the air,
above the clouds and between the stars
so all the world can see you,
and dance once more our ancient dances,
and show this world of misery the worth of honour
and freedom that can only be bought with blood and sacrifice.
Rise, rise, rise!’

Rise (ΓΚΡΟΥΝΝΙ)

By Yorgos Soukoulis

Πάσσι νιέ νίντερε, ντιέ μπρέμα.
Ισ’ νιέ γκρούα, μέ νιέ σσι τ’ έγκιρε.
Μπάι μέ ζερβένε ντόρε, ντιάλινε ντ’ αγκαλέ,
εδέ μέ τ’ ντιάθετινε, νιέ δικόπε θίκε.
Μ’ βισντόι μέ νιέ φιτίρε, τσ’ τ’ φρικιτόν,
εδέ μ’ θά, μούα ψέ μ’ χαρόβε?
Ε βισντόβα μέ φρίκε, εδέ μέ απορί ε πίειτα,
Τσίλια γιέ τί, ντίκου τ’ κάμε πάρε.
Γιάμε νιέ γκά ατό, τσ’ νιέ ι χούαϊ
μ’ βού μέ μπογιέ, ντέ νιέ πλιχούρε
πρ’ τ’ μ’ σιόχενε, ατά τσ’ ο’ βίνιενε
ψέ κίτα τάνετε, μ’ χαρούανε,
παστάι μ’ βιρβίνε, εδέ νάνι ντούανε τ΄μ’ κάουνινε.
Πό τί, ψέ μ’ χαρόβε?
Ο γιέσ εδέ τί, νιέ γκά ατό, γκράτε ε Σούλιτε
τσ’ πρ’ τ’ σπιτόνιτε τιμίνε γκά οχθρότε
ριμπίετε ντιέλτε τούαϊ, ντ’ αγκαλέ,
εδέ ντίκου κιντούαρε, κέ σιντέτε κόσμι ι καιμόιτε,
εδέ ντίκου λιούαρε, ατέ βάουενε ε Ζαλόγγουτε
ού βιρβίτε μπάσκε μέ ντιέλτε, γκά σκιμπίνιετε,
εδέ σκρούαιτιτε, τ’ μάδενε θισί εδέ ιστορί.
Γκράτε ε Σούλιτε ε Ζαλόγγουτε, γκρούννι.
Λίνι γκιάκιρατε τσ΄ ντέρδτε, κονίσμε ντ΄σκιμπίνιετε
πρ’ τ’ φάλενε, τ’ πά λέιτουριτε τσ’ αρούνε.
Μίρι ντιέλτε, τσ’ νάνι γιάνε μπίνε τρίμα,
εδέ βιρβίνε λιά, μπ’ λιά γκά ρέτε, πρίζε ντ’ ίλτε
πρ’ τ’ δινίσετε τ’ ού σιόχε, χέπ κόσμι
εδέ λίουανι, νιέ χέρε μέτα, ατέ βάουενε ε Ζαλόγγουτε,
εδέ φιρτίενι, κιτίατε παλιοκόσμιτε
σά βιλιένε, τιμία εδέ λεφτερία
τσ’ σπαγγούχετε, μέ γκί,
βέτιμε μέ γκιάκε, εδέ θισί
Γκρούννι, γκρούννι, ΓΚΡΟΥΝΝΙ.

Brassens, comme je l’aime!

Je viens de visiter la sympathique expo Brassens à la Cité de la Musique. Dépêchez-vous, si, comme moi, vous fondez devant cet être vraiment délicieusement familier et atypique qui a changé votre vision du monde. Je vous soumets la chanson que je préfère à toute autre, même si d’autres sont également chères à mon coeur (Lien vers la video)

Brassens et ses amis sur la plage de Sète © photographie Victor Laville

Mourir pour des idées, l’idée est excellente
Moi j’ai failli mourir de ne l’avoir pas eu
Car tous ceux qui l’avaient, multitude accablante
En hurlant à la mort me sont tombés dessus
Ils ont su me convaincre et ma muse insolente
Abjurant ses erreurs, se rallie à leur foi
Avec un soupçon de réserve toutefois
Mourrons pour des idées, d’accord, mais de mort lente,
D’accord, mais de mort lente

Jugeant qu’il n’y a pas péril en la demeure
Allons vers l’autre monde en flânant en chemin
Car, à forcer l’allure, il arrive qu’on meure
Pour des idées n’ayant plus cours le lendemain
Or, s’il est une chose amère, désolante
En rendant l’âme à Dieu c’est bien de constater
Qu’on a fait fausse route, qu’on s’est trompé d’idée
Mourrons pour des idées, d’accord, mais de mort lente
D’accord, mais de mort lente

Les saint jean bouche d’or qui prêchent le martyre
Le plus souvent, d’ailleurs, s’attardent ici-bas
Mourir pour des idées, c’est le cas de le dire
C’est leur raison de vivre, ils ne s’en privent pas
Dans presque tous les camps on en voit qui supplantent
Bientôt Mathusalem dans la longévité
J’en conclus qu’ils doivent se dire, en aparté
“Mourrons pour des idées, d’accord, mais de mort lente
D’accord, mais de mort lente”

Des idées réclamant le fameux sacrifice
Les sectes de tout poil en offrent des séquelles
Et la question se pose aux victimes novices
Mourir pour des idées, c’est bien beau mais lesquelles ?
Et comme toutes sont entre elles ressemblantes
Quand il les voit venir, avec leur gros drapeau
Le sage, en hésitant, tourne autour du tombeau
Mourrons pour des idées, d’accord, mais de mort lente
D’accord, mais de mort lente

Encor s’il suffisait de quelques hécatombes
Pour qu’enfin tout changeât, qu’enfin tout s’arrangeât
Depuis tant de “grands soirs” que tant de têtes tombent
Au paradis sur terre on y serait déjà
Mais l’âge d’or sans cesse est remis aux calendes
Les dieux ont toujours soif, n’en ont jamais assez
Et c’est la mort, la mort toujours recommencée
Mourrons pour des idées, d’accord, mais de mort lente
D’accord, mais de mort lente

O vous, les boutefeux, ô vous les bons apôtres
Mourez donc les premiers, nous vous cédons le pas
Mais de grâce, morbleu! laissez vivre les autres!
La vie est à peu près leur seul luxe ici bas
Car, enfin, la Camarde est assez vigilante
Elle n’a pas besoin qu’on lui tienne la faux
Plus de danse macabre autour des échafauds!
Mourrons pour des idées, d’accord, mais de mort lente
D’accord, mais de mort lente

©http://www.musikiwi.com

 

Pour le Nouvel An des Arbres…ce poème du nouvel an tout court.

Une fois de temps en temps, je poste un poème qui me bouleverse
ou m'émeut ou encore m'enchante....Aucun de ceux publiés ici
jusqu'à présent ne m'a touchée autant que celui que je vous livre
aujourd' hui. J'ai l'honneur d'en connaître l'auteur et le prix
inestimable!
J'aurais voulu vous l'offrir plus tôt, mais il me fallait quelques
 autorisations des auteurs, en particulier de Robin et de son
éducateur. Il me fallait aussi le courage de vous conter l'histoire
navrante mais sublime d'un petit Robin de 13 ans qui a un jour
voulu jouer au jeu... du foulard.
Pour ceux qui ignorent ce jeu, je vous invite à visiter les sites d'SOS Benjamin. Toujours est-il que cinq ans après ce drame qui a
frappé mes amis Florence et Patrick. L'année 2011 permet de
retrouver le plus radieux des sourires.
Non, Robin n'est pas né une fois, il est né deux fois et
Florence et Patrick ont trois enfants. L'un deux s'est estompé
il y a 5 ans pour renaître avec une autre personalité, un autre
destin mais toujours le même sourire, le même humour et l'espoir
que d'autres petits et grands bonheur viennent faire oublier un
soir de malheur.  Le poème ci-dessous est celui d'un vrai Cosmo kid
car la diversité, c'est cela aussi...
Il ne l'a pas écrit seul mais avec de 4 autres camarades tous âgés
de 14 à 18 ans qui sont pensionnaires comme lui à
l'institut Guillaume Belluard à Crans-Gevrier, dans le groupe
 "passerelle". Si vous désirez en savoir plus sur cet institut
remarquable, je me ferai un devoir de passer votre demande à mon
amie Flo que j'embrasse très fort et que j'admire encore plus fort!

 Mais assez de blabla, place au poème.

A vous de juger, personnellement, je trouve que la vie est belle et
 réserve, parmi nos tourments plus ou moins supportables, de
merveilleuses pépites de bonheur.

A Robin et ses copains! Vous avez la vie devant vous et vous en connaissez le prix plus et mieux que d'autres!
cliquez sur le lien ci-dessous

Robin_groupe de mots 2010 (cliquez sur le lien) 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Brise marine, Stéphane Mallarmé

La chair est triste, hélas! et j’ai lu tous les livres. Fuir! Là bas fuir! Je sens que les oiseaux sont ivres D’être parmi l’écume inconnue et les cieux. Rien, ni les vieux jardins reflétés par les cieux Ne retiendra ce coeur qui dans la mer se trempe. O nuits! Ni la clarté déserte de ma lampe Sur le vide papier que la blancheur défend Et ni la jeune femme allaitant son enfant. Je partirai! Steamer balançant ta mâture Lève l’ancre pour une exotique nature! Un Ennui, désolé par les cruels espoirs, Croit encore à l’adieu suprême des mouchoirs! Et, peut-être, les mâts, invitant les orages Sont-ils de ceux qu’un vent penche sur les naufrages Perdus, sans mâts, sans mâts, ni fertiles îlots… Mais ô mon coeur entend le chant des matelots!

Shylock’s monologue, in the Merchant of Venice by the Greatest of All….

“I am a Jew… Hath not a Jew eyes ?

Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions ?

Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is ?

If you prick us, do we not bleed ? If you tickle us, do we not laugh ? If you poison us, do we not die ? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge ? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that…”

et en Français…

“Je suis juif… un Juif n’a-t-il pas des yeux ? Un Juif n’a-t-il pas des mains, des organes, des proportions, des sens, des émotions, des passions ? N’est-il pas nourri de même nourriture, blessé des mêmes armes, sujet aux mêmes maladies, guéri par les mêmes moyens, réchauffé et refroidi par le même été, le même hiver, comme un chrétien ? Si vous nous piquez, ne saignons-nous pas ? Si vous nous chatouillez, ne rions-nous pas ? Si vous nous empoisonnez, ne mourons-nous pas ? Si vous nous faites tort, ne nous vengerons-nous pas ? Si nous vous ressemblons dans le reste, nous vous ressemblerons aussi en cela…”

Le bateau ivre…my mood of the day! Vive le Printemps

Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles,
Je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs :
Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles,
Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.

J’étais insoucieux de tous les équipages,
Porteur de blés flamands ou de cotons anglais.
Quand avec mes haleurs ont fini ces tapages,
Les Fleuves m’ont laissé descendre où je voulais.

Dans les clapotements furieux des marées,
Moi, l’autre hiver, plus sourd que les cerveaux d’enfants,
Je courus ! Et les Péninsules démarrées
N’ont pas subi tohu-bohus plus triomphants.

La tempête a béni mes éveils maritimes.
Plus léger qu’un bouchon j’ai dansé sur les flots
Qu’on appelle rouleurs éternels de victimes,
Dix nuits, sans regretter l’oeil niais des falots !

Plus douce qu’aux enfants la chair des pommes sûres,
L’eau verte pénétra ma coque de sapin
Et des taches de vins bleus et des vomissures
Me lava, dispersant gouvernail et grappin.

Et dès lors, je me suis baigné dans le Poème
De la Mer, infusé d’astres, et lactescent,
Dévorant les azurs verts ; où, flottaison blême
Et ravie, un noyé pensif parfois descend ;

Où, teignant tout à coup les bleuités, délires
Et rhythmes lents sous les rutilements du jour,
Plus fortes que l’alcool, plus vastes que nos lyres,
Fermentent les rousseurs amères de l’amour !

Je sais les cieux crevant en éclairs, et les trombes
Et les ressacs et les courants : je sais le soir,
L’Aube exaltée ainsi qu’un peuple de colombes,
Et j’ai vu quelquefois ce que l’homme a cru voir !

J’ai vu le soleil bas, taché d’horreurs mystiques,
Illuminant de longs figements violets,
Pareils à des acteurs de drames très antiques
Les flots roulant au loin leurs frissons de volets !

credits to http://forums.univarts.com/viewtopic.php?id=1554

J’ai rêvé la nuit verte aux neiges éblouies,
Baiser montant aux yeux des mers avec lenteurs,
La circulation des sèves inouïes,
Et l’éveil jaune et bleu des phosphores chanteurs !J’ai suivi, des mois pleins, pareille aux vacheries
Hystériques, la houle à l’assaut des récifs,
Sans songer que les pieds lumineux des Maries
Pussent forcer le mufle aux Océans poussifs !

J’ai heurté, savez-vous, d’incroyables Florides
Mêlant aux fleurs des yeux de panthères à peaux
D’hommes ! Des arcs-en-ciel tendus comme des brides
Sous l’horizon des mers, à de glauques troupeaux !

J’ai vu fermenter les marais énormes, nasses
Où pourrit dans les joncs tout un Léviathan !
Des écroulements d’eaux au milieu des bonaces,
Et les lointains vers les gouffres cataractant !

Glaciers, soleils d’argent, flots nacreux, cieux de braises !
Échouages hideux au fond des golfes bruns
Où les serpents géants dévorés des punaises
Choient, des arbres tordus, avec de noirs parfums !

J’aurais voulu montrer aux enfants ces dorades
Du flot bleu, ces poissons d’or, ces poissons chantants.
– Des écumes de fleurs ont bercé mes dérades
Et d’ineffables vents m’ont ailé par instants.

Parfois, martyr lassé des pôles et des zones,
La mer dont le sanglot faisait mon roulis doux
Montait vers moi ses fleurs d’ombre aux ventouses jaunes
Et je restais, ainsi qu’une femme à genoux…

Presque île, ballottant sur mes bords les querelles
Et les fientes d’oiseaux clabaudeurs aux yeux blonds.
Et je voguais, lorsqu’à travers mes liens frêles
Des noyés descendaient dormir, à reculons !

Or moi, bateau perdu sous les cheveux des anses,
Jeté par l’ouragan dans l’éther sans oiseau,
Moi dont les Monitors et les voiliers des Hanses
N’auraient pas repêché la carcasse ivre d’eau ;

Libre, fumant, monté de brumes violettes,
Moi qui trouais le ciel rougeoyant comme un mur
Qui porte, confiture exquise aux bons poètes,
Des lichens de soleil et des morves d’azur ;

Qui courais, taché de lunules électriques,
Planche folle, escorté des hippocampes noirs,
Quand les juillets faisaient crouler à coups de triques
Les cieux ultramarins aux ardents entonnoirs ;

Moi qui tremblais, sentant geindre à cinquante lieues
Le rut des Béhémots et les Maelstroms épais,
Fileur éternel des immobilités bleues,
Je regrette l’Europe aux anciens parapets !

J’ai vu des archipels sidéraux ! et des îles
Dont les cieux délirants sont ouverts au vogueur :
– Est-ce en ces nuits sans fonds que tu dors et t’exiles,
Million d’oiseaux d’or, ô future Vigueur ?

Mais, vrai, j’ai trop pleuré ! Les Aubes sont navrantes.
Toute lune est atroce et tout soleil amer :
L’âcre amour m’a gonflé de torpeurs enivrantes.
Ô que ma quille éclate ! Ô que j’aille à la mer !

Si je désire une eau d’Europe, c’est la flache
Noire et froide où vers le crépuscule embaumé
Un enfant accroupi plein de tristesse, lâche
Un bateau frêle comme un papillon de mai.

Je ne puis plus, baigné de vos langueurs, ô lames,
Enlever leur sillage aux porteurs de cotons,
Ni traverser l’orgueil des drapeaux et des flammes,
Ni nager sous les yeux horribles des pontons.

I just saw a rather sad version of this on stage in a disaster Peter Brook representation…I know it was an accident and the artist who performed was still brilliant enough to make us forget the mishaps. Shakespeare’s unbelievable talent accounts for the rest….

Love is my sin

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,
O, but with mine, compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,
Or if it do, not from those lips of thine
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robbed others’ beds’ revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov’st those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee.
Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example mayst thou be denied!

Sonnet 142 by William Shakespeare

William Blake, Jerusalem….Prompted by Martine…I forgot how much I loved this one!

And did those feet in Ancient Time
Walk upon England’s Mountain Green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
Upon England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded Hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these Dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire !
Bring me my spear! O Clouds, unfold!
Bring me my charriot of Fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my Hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant Land .

Sing it along I personally found this particularly moving…