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Chain of Twenty Five

Another year has passed, my love,
And now it's twenty five:
The total years our marriage has
Been true, and been alive.

We've moved a dozen times in all,
And shared good times with bad.
We've traveled many thousand miles.
Adventures, we have had.

Nine children have been born to us,
And one grandchild, as well.
We're in McLean three years by now.
It seems like quite a spell.

My job has separated us
Each year from time to time.
Let's hope New York will be the last
Occasion for such rhyme.

Ch 05 On Love And Youth Story 21

A virtuous and beauteous youth
Was pledged to a chaste maiden.
I read that in the great sea
They fell into a vortex together.
When a sailor came to take his hand,
Lest he might die in that condition,
He said in anguish from the waves:
‘Leave me. Take the hand of my love.’
Whilst saying this, he despaired of life.
In his agony he was heard to exclaim:
‘Learn not the tale of love from the wretch
Who forgets his beloved in distress.’
Thus the lives of the lovers terminated.

Ch 05 On Love And Youth Story 17

In the year when Muhammad Khovarezm Shah concluded peace with the king of Khata to suit his own purpose, I entered the cathedral mosque of Kashgar and saw an extremely handsome, graceful boy as described in the simile:

Thy master has taught thee to coquet and to ravish hearts,
Instructed thee to oppose, to dally, to blame and to be severe.
A person of such figure, temper, stature and gait
I have not seen; perhaps he learnt these tricks from a fairy.

Ch 02 The Morals Of Dervishes Story 28

The life of a king was drawing to a close and he had no successor. He ordered in his last testament that the next morning after his death the first person entering the gate of the city be presented with the royal crown and be entrusted with the government of the realm. It so happened that the first person who entered was a mendicant who had all his life subsisted on the morsels he collected and had sewn patch after patch upon his clothes.

Centennial Celebration

I

In the year eighteen seventy-six,
A Fourth of July celebration
Was held in Grand Rapids city
In honor to our nation.
The largest city in the county of Kent,
Is this city, and it is respected,
For thousands of people was here to see
The beautiful arch erected.
II
The Centennial arch on Campau Place
Was the most principal feature;
It was a grand beautiful sight
To all human sensitive creatures;
To all the people that loved to read
The mottoes on it painted,
The engravings, too, and tell
What each one represented.
III

Cartoon Physics, Part 1

Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know
that the universe is ever-expanding,
inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies

swallowed by galaxies, whole

solar systems collapsing, all of it
acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning

the rules of cartoon animation,

that if a man draws a door on a rock
only he can pass through it.
Anyone else who tries

will crash into the rock. Ten-year-olds
should stick with burning houses, car wrecks,
ships going down -- earthbound, tangible

disasters, arenas

Carmen De Boheme

Sinuously winding through the room
On smokey tongues of sweetened cigarettes, --
Plaintive yet proud the cello tones resume
The andante of smooth hopes and lost regrets.

Bright peacocks drink from flame-pots by the wall,
Just as absinthe-sipping women shiver through
With shimmering blue from the bowl in Circe's hall.
Their brown eyes blacken, and the blue drop hue.

The andante quivers with crescendo's start,
And dies on fire's birth in each man's heart.
The tapestry betrays a finger through

Canto I And Then Went Down to the Ship

And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us onward with bellying canvas,
Crice's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities

Canto 1

And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us onward with bellying canvas,
Crice's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities

Cantiga de Santa Maria, No. 181

Pero que seja a gente
d'outra lei [e] descreuda,
os que a Virgen mais aman,
a esses ela ajuda.

Fremosa miragre desto
fez a Virgen groriosa
na cidade de Marrocos,
que é mui gran' e fremosa,
a un rei que era ende
sennor, que perigoosa
guerra con outro avia,
per que gran mester ajuda.

Avia de quen lla désse:
ca assi corn' el cercado
jazia dentr' en Marrocos
ca o outro ja passado
era per un grande rio
que Morabe é chamado
con muitos de cavaleiros
e mui gran gente miuda.