silence

SHE knelt upon her brother's grave,
   My little girl of six years old--
He used to be so good and brave,
   The sweetest lamb of all our fold;
He used to shout, he used to sing,
Of all our tribe the little king--
And so unto the turf her ear she laid,
To hark if still in that dark place he play'd.
   No sound! no sound!
   Death's silence was profound;
   And horror crept
   Into her aching heart, and Dora wept.
   If this is as it ought to be,
   My God, I leave it unto Thee.

Darkness descends
on Alpujara's golden land.
My guitar invites you,
come out my dear!

Whoever says that there are others
who can be compared to you,
whoever burns for your love,
I challenge them all to a duel!

Now the moon
has set the sky alight,
come out, Nisetta, oh come out, Nisetta,
on to your balcony, quickly!

From Seville to Granada
in the silence of the nights,
one can hear the sound of serenades
and the clashing of swords.

Much blood, many songs,

My own dream is lofty, simple thing:
To seize the oar, put feet into the stirrups,
And to deceive the time, that slow tries to stir us,
By kissing lips, forever new and pink;

When getting old, to keep the law of Christ,
Cast down looks, put on sackcloth and ashes,
Put on the chest, as heavy obligations,
The iron Cross, that He died on for us.

And only when, amidst the orgy’s madness,
I get my senses – a sleepwalker aimless,
Just frightened in the silence of his ways –

's an interesting
custom, involving such in-
visible items as the food
that's not on the table, the clothes
that are not on the back
the radio whose music
is silence. Doing without
is a great protector of reputations
since all places on cannot go
are fabulous, and only the rare and
enlightened plowman in his field
or on his mountain does not overrate
what he does not or cannot have.
Saluting through their windows

Outside the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips,
And at night when the wind arose, the lash of the tree
Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship’s
Weird rigging in a storm shrieks hideously.

Within the house two voices arose in anger, a slender lash
Whistling delirious rage, and the dreadful sound
Of a thick lash booming and bruising, until it drowned
The other voice in a silence of blood, ’neath the noise of the ash.

Dirrawan went into the bush to spear waat,
but he forgot about waat the red wallaby.
he thought about dirridirri the small bird and deereeree the wagtail
he thought about wonning the lightning and tumberumba the thunder.

He did not spear anything at all.

Dirrawan went to the Long Brown Water to catch makora.
he thought about balleballea the silence of the night,
he thought about ballanda the long time ago.

He did not catch any fish, he brought back a new song to the gunyahs.

I

All you that are enamored of my name
And least intent on what most I require,
Beware; for my design and your desire,
Deplorably, are not as yet the same.

Beware, I say, the failure and the shame
Of losing that for which you now aspire
So blindly, and of hazarding entire
The gift that I was bringing when I came.

Give as I will, I cannot give you sight
Whereby to see that with you there are some
To lead you, and be led. But they are dumb
Before the wrangling and the shrill delight

O! say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there -
O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

I

I took the clock down from the shelf;
"At eight," said I, "I shoot myself."
It lacked a minute of the hour,
And as I waited all a-cower,
A skinful of black, boding pain,
Bits of my life came back again. . . .

"Mother, there's nothing more to eat --
Why don't you go out on the street?
Always you sit and cry and cry;
Here at my play I wonder why.
Mother, when you dress up at night,
Red are your cheeks, your eyes are bright;
Twining a ribband in your hair,
Kissing good-bye you go down-stair.

Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of Silence had hung o'er thee long.
When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song.
The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness
Have waken'd thy fondest, thy livliest thrill,
But, so oft hast thou echoed the deep sigh of sadness,
That even in thy mirth it will steal from thee still.

Dear Harp of my country! farewell to thy numbers,
This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine!