1. TWO SONNETS BY SHAKESPEARE

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

commentary

Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.
___________________________________________

2. Sonnet
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
and rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release
or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell you love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be.  I do not think I would.
__________________________________________

3. somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
by e. e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

________________________

.  Enigma
by Jessie Redmon Fauset

There is no peace with you,
Nor any rest!
Your presence is a torture to the brain.
Your words are barbed arrows to the breast,
And one but greets To wish you sped again.
Frustrate you make desire
And action vain.
There is no peace with you .
No peace . . .
Nor any rest.

Yet in your absence
Longing springs anew,
And hopefulness besets the baffled brain.
"If only you were you and yet not you!"
If you such joy could give as you give pain!
Then what an unguent for the burning breast!
And for the harassed heart
What rapture true!
"If only you were you and yet not you!"
There is no peace with you
Nor ever any rest!

_______________________________________

5. TWO POEMS BY SARA TEASDALE

I Am Not Yours

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

Let It Be Forgotten

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten forever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long-forgotten snow.
________________________________________

.  The More Loving One
by W. H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

_______________________________________

7.  A Red Flower
by Claude McKay 

OUR lips are like a southern lily red,

  Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,

In which the brown bee buries deep its head,

  When still the dawn's a silver sea of light.

Your lips betray the secret of your soul,

  The dark delicious essence that is you,

A mystery of life, the flaming goal

  I seek through mazy pathways strange and new.

Your lips are the red symbol of a dream,

  What visions of warm lilies they impart,

That line the green bank of a fair blue stream,

  With butterflies and bees close to each heart!

Brown bees that murmur sounds of music rare,

  That softly fall upon the langourous breeze,

Wafting them gently on the quiet air

  Among untended avenues of trees.

O were I hovering, a bee, to probe

  Deep down within your scented heart, fair flower,

Enfolded by your soft vermilion robe,

  Amorous of sweets, for but one perfect hour!

_____________________________________________

8. Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

                                          
English 5730 is taught by Dr. Richard Nordquist
Office of Liberal Studies (Solms 211)
Armstrong Atlantic State University
11935 Abercorn Street
Savannah, Georgia 31419
912/921 5991              
e-mail: engl5730@lycos.com    

                                       
updated 13 February 2005

| AASU Home | Visitor  Information AASU | Site Map | Applying to AASU |
| Faculty and Staff | Administration | Student Resources | Distance Learning |
| Colleges and Schools | Athletics | Alumni |  Web Coursework | Financial Aid | 
|  Continuing Education | News and Information | Library |