My husband gives me an A
for last night's supper,
an incomplete for my ironing,
a B plus in bed.
My son says I am average,
an average mother, but if
I put my mind to it
I could improve.
My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass. Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out.
R.Frost 100th B'day
The air was soft, the ground still cold.
In wet dull pastures where I strolled
Was something I could not believe.
Dead grass appeared to slide and heave,
Though still too frozen-flat to stir,
And rocks to twitch, and all to blur.
What was this rippling of the land?
Was matter getting out of hand
And making free with natural law?
I stopped and blinked, and then I saw
A fact as eerie as a dream.
There was a subtle flood of stream
Moving upon the face of things.
One dreary September day
Emperor Manuel Komninos
felt his death was near.
The court astrologers -bribed, of course- went on babbling
about how many years he still had to live.
But while they were having their say,
he remebered an old religious custom
and ordered ecclesiastical vestments
to be brought from a monastery,
and he put them on, glad to assume
the modest image of a priest or monk.
Happy all those who believe,
and like Emperor Manuel end their lives
dressed modestly in their faith.
188
Make me a picture of the sun—
So I can hang it in my room—
And make believe I'm getting warm
When others call it "Day"!
Draw me a Robin—on a stem—
So I am hearing him, I'll dream,
And when the Orchards stop their tune—
Put my pretense—away—
Say if it's really—warm at noon—
Whether it's Buttercups—that "skim"—
Or Butterflies—that "bloom"?
Then—skip—the frost—upon the lea—
And skip the Russet—on the tree—
Let's play those—never come!
Our so-called limitations,believe,
apply to faculties we don't apply.
We don't discover what we can't achieve
until we make an effort not to try.
You pull over to the shoulder
of the two-lane
road and sit for a moment wondering
where you were going
in such a hurry. The valley is burned
out, the oaks
dream day and night of rain
that never comes.
At noon or just before noon
the short shadows
are gray and hold what little
life survives.
In the still heat the engine
clicks, although
the real heat is hours ahead.
You get out and step
cautiously over a low wire
You may think, passer-by, that Fate
Is a pit-fall outside of yourself,
Around which you may walk by the use of foresight
And wisdom.
Thus you believe, viewing the lives of other men,
As one who in God-like fashion bends over an anthill,
Seeing how their difficulties could be avoided.
But pass on into life:
In time you shall see Fate approach you
In the shape of your own image in the mirror;
Or you shall sit alone by your own hearth,
And suddenly the chair by you shall hold a guest,
And you shall know that guest,
He made a line on the blackboard,
one bold stroke from right to left
diagonally downward and stood back
to ask, looking as always at no one
in particular, "What have I done?"
From the back of the room Freddie
shouted, "You've broken a piece
of chalk." M. Degas did not smile.
"What have I done?" he repeated.
The most intellectual students
looked down to study their desks
except for Gertrude Bimmler, who raised
her hand before she spoke. "M. Degas,
you have created the hypotenuse
Your days will be full of cares, if you must give me your heart.
My house by the cross-roads has its doors open and my mind is
absent, -for I sing.
I shall never be made to answer for it, if you must give me
your heart. If I pledge my word to you in tunes now, and am too
much in earnest to keep it when music is silent, you must forgive
me; for the law laid down in May is best broken in December.
Do not always keep remembering it, if you must give me your
heart. When your eyes sing with love, and your voice ripples with
Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.
Cast sweets into its cup whene’er you can.
No heart so hard, but love at last may win it.
Love is the great primæval cause of man.
All hate is foreign to the first great plan.
Love much. Your heart will be led out to slaughter,
On altars built of envy and deciet.
Love on, love on! ‘tis bread upon the water;
It shall be cast in loaves yet at your feet,
Unleavened manna, most divinely sweet.
Love much. Your faith will be dethroned and shaken,
