Television

The most important thing we've learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set - Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we've been, We've watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare until their eyes pop out.

A Clear Midnight

THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best. Night, sleep, death and the stars.

"Mike Teavee..."

The most important thing we've learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set -- Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we've been, We've watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare until their eyes pop out.

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more,

All Nature Has A Feeling

All nature has a feeling: woods, fields, brooks Are life eternal: and in silence they Speak happiness beyond the reach of books; There's nothing mortal in them; their decay Is the green life of change; to pass away And come again in blooms revivified. Its birth was heaven, eternal it its stay, And with the sun and moon shall still abide Beneath their day and night and heaven wide.

Carson Mccullers

she died of alcoholism wrapped in a blanket on a deck chair on an ocean steamer. all her books of terrified loneliness all her books about

Freedom Xiv

And an orator said, 'Speak to us of Freedom.' And he answered: At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them. Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

Ode To The Book

When I close a book I open life. I hear faltering cries among harbours. Copper ignots slide down sand-pits to Tocopilla. Night time. Among the islands

The Summer Rain

My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read, 'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large Down in the meadow, where is richer feed, And will not mind to hit their proper targe. Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too, Our Shakespeare's life were rich to live again, What Plutarch read, that was not good nor true, Nor Shakespeare's books, unless his books were men.

Authorship

You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don't understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can't father write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his own mother stories of giants and fairies and princesses? Has he forgotten them all? Often when he gets late for his bath you have to and call him

Daughter

Why is the world at peace. This may astonish you a little but when you realise how easily Mrs. Charles Bianco sells the work of American painters to American millionaires you will recognize that authorities are constrained to be relieved. Let me tell you a story. A painter loved a woman. A musician did not sing. A South African loved books. An American was a woman and needed help. Are Americans the same as incubators. But this is the rest of the story. He became an authority.

Sway With Me

sway with me, everything sad - madmen in stone houses without doors, lepers steaming love and song frogs trying to figure the sky; sway with me, sad things - fingers split on a forge old age like breakfast shell used books, used people

Looking At The Grinding Stones - Dohas (Couplets) I

Looking at the grinding stones, Kabir laments In the duel of wheels, nothing stays intact. searching for the wicked, met not a single one When searched myself, 'I' found the wicked one Tomorrows work do today, today's work anon if the moment is lost, when will the work be done Speak such words, sans ego's ploy

After The Poet's Death

His poems refuse to mourn his passing, they detach themselves from books, magazines, wall hangings and float freely in the fair summer air. Their refusal to mourn is steadfast. 'He's just changed his address, ' one of his

A Rose

I'm a white rose pure and innocent Pluck me not for your momentary pleasures Crush me not to be found after years In the books among the shelves Or in the jewel box of your treasure Free me please from your whims n desires. To the rhythmic breeze let me sway In the warmth of love let me bask Let me live these fleeting moments Feeling the ecstasy of freedom

Incantation

Human reason is beautiful and invincible. No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books, No sentence of banishment can prevail against it. It establishes the universal ideas in language, And guides our hand so we write Truth and Justice With capital letters, lie and oppression with small. It puts what should be above things as they are, Is an enemy of despair and a friend of hope. It does not know Jew from Greek or slave from master, Giving us the estate of the world to manage.

A Disqualified Jockey's Story

You see, the thing was this way -- there was me, That rode Panopply, the Splendor mare, And Ikey Chambers on the Iron Dook, And Smith, the half-caste rider on Regret, And that long bloke from Wagga -- him that rode Veronikew, the Snowy River horse. Well, none of them had chances -- not a chance Among the lot, unless the rest fell dead Or wasn't trying -- for a blind man's dog Could see Enchantress was a certain cop,

1915

I’ve watched the Seasons passing slow, so slow, In the fields between La Bassée and Bethune; Primroses and the first warm day of Spring, Red poppy floods of June, August, and yellowing Autumn, so To Winter nights knee-deep in mud or snow, And you’ve been everything. Dear, you’ve been everything that I most lack In these soul-deadening trenches—pictures, books,

"Heap Cassia, Sandal-Buds And Stripes"

Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair: such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main, To treasure half their island-gain. And strew faint sweetness from some old

Child

Hello lovely kid, You may always lead, May you become head, Books more you read, You are always future, Ideas good you nurture, Learn always you best, And pass the entire test,