Lest as a pilgrim, again,
In such
twilight
shadows,
HE should alight, peradventure
Onto our earth, and then
Over the way he should glide,
--Parting the leaves with his radiance-
Through the copse to thy threshold,
There awhile to abide.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Stefan George - Selections from His Works and Others |
|
From mercy thus if envy bar me, be
My amorous thirst and
helplessness
my plea.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Petrarch - Poems |
|
After so long, sister, to see
And hold thee, and then part, then part,
By all that chained thee to my heart
Forsaken, and
forsaking
thee!
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Euripides - Electra |
|
Elvire
Reject, Madame, so tragic a design;
Reject this law,
tyrannical
and blind.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Corneille - Le Cid |
|
Of deathful arts expert, his lord employs
The
ministers
of blood in dark surprise;
And twenty youths, in radiant mail incased,
Close ambush'd nigh the spacious hall he placed.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Odyssey - Pope |
|
That was to impress the people,
and then they settled down quiet, and
Carnehan
went back to Dravot, who
had got into another valley, all snow and ice and most mountaineous.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Kipling - Poems |
|
O thou field of my delight so fair and
verdant!
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Pushkin - Talisman |
|
Continued
use of this site implies consent to that usage.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Paul Eluard - Poems |
|
- You comply with all other terms of this
agreement
for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Sarojini Naidu - Golden Threshold |
|
IO
As thou didst proffer hope,
withdraw
it not.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Aeschylus |
|
Her hair is a
sinister
black,
Her skin, tanned by the devil.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
19th Century French Poetry |
|
LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you
discover
a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Pushkin - Eugene Oneigin |
|
They may be modified and printed and
given away - you may do
practically
_anything_ with public domain
eBooks.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Stephen Crane |
|
My feet kept drowsing,
drowsing
still,
My fingers were awake;
Yet why so little sound myself
Unto my seeming make?
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Dickinson - Three - Complete |
|
LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written
explanation
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| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Rilke - Poems |
|
When lo, his gallant son brave Castro sends--
Ah heav'n, what fate the hapless youth
attends!
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Camoes - Lusiades |
|
It is the heaviest calamity Wordsworth has ever
experienced, and in all
probability
I shall have to communicate it to
him, as he will very likely be here before the tidings can reach him.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
William Wordsworth |
|
THE POET'S LOVE-SONG
In noon-tide hours, O Love, secure and strong,
I need thee not; mad dreams are mine to bind
The world to my desire, and hold the wind
A
voiceless
captive to my conquering song.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Sarojini Naidu - Golden Threshold |
|
My brass is
provoked
as much as thy stone.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Marvell - Poems |
|
However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the
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version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Keats - Lamia |
|
Somewhere
or other there must surely be
The face not seen, the voice not heard,
The heart that not yet--never yet--ah me!
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Christina Rossetti |
|
Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or
redistribute
this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Aeschylus |
|
Three moons his great heart him a hermit made,
So long he roved at will the
boundless
shade.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Emerson - Poems |
|
It is important
only as
supporting
readings and ascriptions of other manuscripts.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
John Donne |
|
Nothing - not even old gardens mirrored by eyes -
Can restrain this heart that drenches itself in the sea,
O nights, or the abandoned light of my lamp,
On the void of paper, that
whiteness
defends,
No, not even the young woman feeding her child.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Mallarme - Poems |
|
at
crystenmas
whyle;
"& i schal fonde, bi my fayth, to fylter wyth ?
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Gawaine and the Green Knight |
|
Let me be clipped of that heritage
And burned for ages through;
Freed and
stripped
of my fear and rage--
But not of you.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
American Poetry - 1922 |
|
Lady,
wherever
shines the sun, than you
Love has no dearer pledge.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Petrarch - Poems |
|
Ladyes, I preye
ensample
taketh,
Ye that ayeins your love mistaketh: 1540
For if hir deeth be yow to wyte,
God can ful wel your whyle quyte.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Chaucer - Romuant of the Rose |
|
Compliance
requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
William Wordsworth |
|
The
conception
of men turned into trees occurs also in
Ovid, Vergil, Tasso, and Dante.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Spenser - Faerie Queene - 1 |
|
My memory
Is still
obscured
by seeing your coming
And going.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Paul Eluard - Poems |
|
So stands the curse, so I
confront
it here.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Aeschylus |
|
He is thinking, and the walls are pierced with beams
of sunshine,
slipping
through young green.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Imagists |
|
He grips the tankard of brown ale
That spills a
generous
foam:
Oft-times he drinks, they say, and winks
At drunk men lurching home.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Abercrombie - Georgian Poetry 1920-22 |
|
In Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal the
following
entries occur:
"Tuesday (March 16).
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
William Wordsworth |
|
LII
Then freshly up arose the doughtie knight, 460
All healed of his hurts and woundes wide,
And did himselfe to battell ready dight;
Whose early foe awaiting him beside
To have devourd, so soone as day he spyde,
When now he saw himselfe so freshly reare, 465
As if late fight had nought him damnifyde,
He woxe dismayd, and gan his fate to feare;
Nathlesse with wonted rage he him
advaunced
neare.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Spenser - Faerie Queene - 1 |
|
I thank you, Sir, with all my soul for your
friendly
hints, though I
do not need them so much as my friends are apt to imagine.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Robert Burns |
|
_
Late, late, oh late, beneath the tree stood two;
In trembling joy, and
wondering
"Is it true?
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
George Lathrop - Dreams and Days |
|
--
The
slackening
of the bow heals not the wound.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Petrarch |
|
In _HN_ Drummond has altered
to 'Ethnicks' a word Donne uses elsewhere: 'Of all nations the Jews
have most chastely
preserved
that ceremony of abstaining from Ethnic
names.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
John Donne |
|
Copyright laws in most countries are in
a
constant
state of change.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Imagists |
|
"
IX
Two and two behind the twins
Their trusty
comrades
go,
Four and forty valiant men,
With club, and axe, and bow.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Macaulay - Lays of Ancient Rome |
|
embracing
her in sleep.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Epic of Gilgamesh |
|
Wherefore do I so,
peradventure
thou askest.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Catullus - Carmina |
|
"This music crept by me upon the waters"
And along the Strand, up Queen
Victoria
Street.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
T.S. Eliot - The Waste Land |
|
I glide on the surface of seas
I have grown sentimental
I no longer know the guide
I no longer move silk over ice
I am
diseased
flowers and stones
I love the most chinese of nudes
I love the most naked lapses of wings
I am old but here I am beautiful
And the shadow that flows from the deep windows
Each evening spares the dark heart of my stare.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Paul Eluard - Poems |
|
On the hair of them all
rests a garland fitly trimmed; each carries two cornel spear-shafts
tipped with steel; some have
polished
quivers on their shoulders; above
their breast and round their neck goes a flexible circlet of twisted
gold.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Virgil - Aeneid |
|
Madden
explains
to3t, promptly.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Gawaine and the Green Knight |
|
--The third requisite in our poet or maker is imitation, to
be able to convert the
substance
or riches of another poet to his own
use.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems |
|
{117b} You might believe that the uprooted Cyclades were
floating
in.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems |
|
quin etiam ruris cultus
legesque
notauit
militiamque soli; quod collis Bacchus amaret,
quod fecunda Ceres campos, quod Pallas utrumque,
atque arbusta uagis essent quod adultera pomis,
siluarumque deos sacrataque flumina nymphis,
pacis opus magnos naturae condit in usus.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Oxford Book of Latin Verse |
|
Series
For the splendour of the day of
happinesses
in the air
To live the taste of colours easily
To enjoy loves so as to laugh
To open eyes at the final moment
She has every willingness.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Paul Eluard - Poems |
|
Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of
electronic
works that could be freely shared
with anyone.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Sarojini Naidu - Golden Threshold |
|
"
"Fill thy hand with sands, ray
blossom!
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Pushkin - Talisman |
|
Then, when her
laughter
ceased, "Have done
With fume and fret," she cried, "my fair;
That odious bull will give you soon
His horns to tear.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Horace - Odes, Carmen |
|
Better by far they go, though doomed to die,
Than that we lose honour and dignity,
And be
ourselves
brought down to beggary.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Chanson de Roland |
|
In fact the
satyr stands between
Gilgamish
and Ishara(?
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Epic of Gilgamesh |
|
Come, you, who
play spring melodies upon the
harmonious
flute,[248] lead off our
anapaests.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Aristophanes |
|
Would you that spangle of
Existence
spend
About THE SECRET--quick about it, Friend!
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Omar Khayyam - Rubaiyat |
|
The person or entity that provided you with
the
defective
work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Baudelaire - Fleurs Du Mal |
|
"
Twice bowing, he
acknowledged
the gracious words:
Then woke from sleep, full of wonder and joy.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Waley - 170 Chinese Poems |
|
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every
Hyacinth
the Garden wears
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Omar Khayyam - Rubaiyat |
|
: _Rufa rufum anus_ Munro: _rufa
rufulum_
Pleitner, Postgate _rufa rufuli_ Palmer || _fellat_ O:
_fallat al.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Latin - Catullus |
|
With such a book
Before our eyes, we could not choose but read
Lessons of genuine brotherhood, the plain 545
And
universal
reason of mankind,
The truths of young and old.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
William Wordsworth |
|
IV
O
splendeur
de la chair!
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Rimbaud - Poesie Completes |
|
Don Arias, a Castilian gentleman
Don Alonso, a Castilian gentleman
Chimene,
daughter
of Don Gomes
Leonor, governess to the Infanta
Elvire, governess to Chimene
A Page, to the Infanta
Act I Scene I (Chimene, Elvire)
Chimene
Is the report you bring me now sincere?
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Corneille - Le Cid |
|
'
And still they led him onwards, and he still
Looked back towards her
standing
there; and they, content,
Cheered him and praised him that he did their will.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Abercrombie - Georgian Poetry 1920-22 |
|
Replied the Tsar, our country's hope and glory:
Of a truth, thou little lad, and peasant's
bantling!
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Pushkin - Talisman |
|
s Altar, by legend
constructed
by Duke Wen of Qin, was a mound that marked Fuzhou, where Du Fu?
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Du Fu - 5 |
|
There was no Band, but they all sang "The Place
where the old Horse died" as something
respectful
and appropriate to the
occasion.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Kipling - Poems |
|
To be sure, these two are not numbered, so that I was long
undecided as to just what their proper
position
might be.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Goethe - Erotica Romana |
|
He does not know that
sickening
thirst
That sands one's throat, before
The hangman with his gardener's gloves
Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
That the throat may thirst no more.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Oscar Wilde - Poetry |
|
e
remenaunt
of ?
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Chaucer - Boethius |
|
If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice
indicating
that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Khalil Gibran - Poems |
|
Yet envious tongues incited him to ask
A
reckoning
of that just one, who return'd
Twelve fold to him for ten.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Dante - The Divine Comedy |
|
'If our own will as others' law we bind,
If the foul worship trampled here we fear;
If as
ourselves
we cease to love our kind!
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Shelley |
|
How went the question,
A paltry
question
set on the elements
Of love and the wronged lover's obligation?
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Abercrombie - Georgian Poetry 1920-22 |
|
Its
importance
will be obvious after several volumes are published,
when the point referred to above--viz.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Wordsworth - 1 |
|
Very
soon they became truly
attached
to her, for one could not know her
without loving her.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Pushkin - Daughter of the Commandant |
|
For while they all were
travelling
home,
Cried Betty, "Tell us Johnny, do,
"Where all this long night you have been,
"What you have heard, what you have seen,
"And Johnny, mind you tell us true.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Coleridge - Lyrical Ballads |
|
Here, when without all power
To buoy themselves and on their wings to lean,
Lo, nature
constrains
them by their weight to slip
Down to the earth, and lying prostrate there
Along the well-nigh empty void, they spend
Their souls through all the openings of their frame.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Lucretius |
|
org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of
exporting
a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" or other form.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Thomas Hardy - Poems of the Past and Present |
|
"
CORYDON
"This bristling boar's head, Delian Maid, to thee,
With branching antlers of a
sprightly
stag,
Young Micon offers: if his luck but hold,
Full-length in polished marble, ankle-bound
With purple buskin, shall thy statue stand.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Virgil - Eclogues |
|
Lo these starry hosts
They are thy
servants
if thou wilt obey my awful Law
Los answerd furious art thou one of those who when most complacent
Mean mischief most.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Blake - Zoas |
|
KAU}
Casting their
sparkies
dire abroad into the dismal deep {Alternate reading of "sparkles" for "sparkies.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Blake - Zoas |
|
They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress crown,
And gently they
uplifted
her, and gently laid her down.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Macaulay - Lays of Ancient Rome |
|
Then to my lord, where by the meadow side
He prays the
woodland
nymphs.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Euripides - Electra |
|
Chacun de vous m'a fait un temple dans son coeur;
Vous avez, en secret, baise ma fesse
immonde!
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Baudelaire - Fleurs Du Mal |
|
Note: Ronsard's later
tributes
to 'Marie' were written for the Duke of Anjou (the future Henri III) whose mistress Marie de Cleves died in 1574.
| Guess: |
|
| Question: |
|
| Answer: |
|
| Source: |
Ronsard |
|
And Danaus, our sire and guide,
The king of counsel, pond'ring well
The dice of fortune as they fell,
Out of two griefs the kindlier chose,
And bade us fly, with him beside,
Heedless what winds or waves arose,
And o'er the wide sea waters haste,
Until to Argos' shore at last
Our wandering pinnace came--
Argos, the
immemorial
home
Of her from whom we boast to come--
Io, the ox-horned maiden, whom,
After long wandering, woe, and scathe,
Zeus with a touch, a mystic breath,
Made mother of our name.
| Guess: |
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| Question: |
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| Answer: |
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| Source: |
Aeschylus |
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Io volsi 'l viso, e 'l passo non men tosto,
appresso i savi, che
parlavan
sie,
che l'andar mi facean di nullo costo.
| Guess: |
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| Question: |
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| Answer: |
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| Source: |
Dante - La Divina Commedia |
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And the clear constellations, that infinite throng,
While thousand rich
harmonies
swelled in their song,
Replying, bowed meekly their diamond-blaze--
And the blue waves, which nothing may bind or arrest,
Chorus'd forth, as they stooped the white foam of their crest
"Creator!
| Guess: |
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| Question: |
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| Answer: |
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| Source: |
Victor Hugo - Poems |
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No annual
training
or muster of soldiery, no celebration with its
scarfs and banners, could import into the town a hundredth part of the
annual splendor of our October.
| Guess: |
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| Question: |
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| Answer: |
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| Source: |
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems |
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I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with
barnacles
on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.
| Guess: |
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| Question: |
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| Answer: |
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| Source: |
Eliot - Rhapsody on a Windy Night |
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All stir and strife and life and bustle
In
everything
around one sees;
The rushes whistle, sedges rustle,
The grass is buzzing round like bees;
The butterflies are tossed about
Like skiffs upon a stormy sea;
The bees are lost amid the rout
And drop in [their] perplexity.
| Guess: |
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| Question: |
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| Answer: |
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| Source: |
John Clare |
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TO
AURELIUS
AND FURIUS IN DEFENCE OF HIS MUSE'S HONESTY.
| Guess: |
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| Question: |
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| Answer: |
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| Source: |
Catullus - Carmina |
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The brazen heaven is not yet
accessible
to him.
| Guess: |
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| Question: |
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| Answer: |
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| Source: |
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems |
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"
With a roar and a grunt the Biharin rose to his feet and plunged forward
toward the desert, his driver
following
with shouts and lamentation.
| Guess: |
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| Question: |
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| Answer: |
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| Source: |
Kipling - Poems |
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Leon Bailby
Oiseau tranquille au vol inverse oiseau
Qui nidifie en l'air
A la limite ou notre sol brille deja
Baisse ta deuxieme paupiere la terre t'eblouit
Quand tu leves la tete
Et moi aussi de pres je suis sombre et terne
Une brume qui vient d'obscurcir les lanternes
Une main qui tout a coup se pose devant les yeux
Une voute entre vous et toutes les lumieres
Et je m'eloignerai m'illuminant au milieu d'ombres
Et d'alignements d'yeux des astres bien-aimes
Oiseau tranquille au vol inverse oiseau
Qui nidifie en l'air
A la limite ou brille deja ma memoire
Baisse ta deuxieme paupiere
Ni a cause du soleil ni a cause de la terre
Mais pour ce feu oblong dont l'intensite ira s'augmentant
Au point qu'il
deviendra
un jour l'unique lumiere
Un jour
Un jour je m'attendais moi-meme
Je me disais Guillaume il est temps que tu viennes
Pour que je sache enfin celui-la que je suis
Moi qui connais les autres
Je les connais par les cinq sens et quelques autres
Il me suffit de voir leur pieds pour pouvoir refaire ces gens a
milliers
De voir leurs pieds paniques un seul de leurs cheveux
De voir leur langue quand il me plait de faire le medecin
Ou leurs enfants quand il me plait de faire le prophete
Les vaisseaux des armateurs la plume de mes confreres
La monnaie des aveugles les mains des muets
Ou bien encore a cause du vocabulaire et non de l'ecriture
Une lettre ecrite par ceux qui ont plus de vingt ans
Il me suffit de sentir l'odeur de leurs eglises
L'odeur des fleuves dans leurs villes
Le parfum des fleurs dans les jardins publics
O Corneille Agrippa l'odeur d'un petit chien m'eut suffi
Pour decrire exactement tes concitoyens de Cologne
Leurs rois-mages et la ribambelle ursuline
Qui t'inspirait l'erreur touchant toutes les femmes
Il me suffit de gouter la saveur de laurier qu'on cultive pour que
j'aime ou que je bafoue
Et de toucher les vetements
Pour ne pas douter si l'on est frileux ou non
O gens que je connais
Il me suffit d'entendre le bruit de leurs pas
Pour pouvoir indiquer a jamais la direction qu'ils ont prise
Il me suffit de tous ceux-la pour me croire le droit
De ressusciter les autres
Un jour je m'attendais moi-meme
Je me disais Guillaume il est temps que tu viennes
Et d'un lyrique pas s'avancaient ceux que j'aime
Parmi lesquels je n'etais pas
Les geants couverts d'algues passaient dans leurs villes
Sous-marines ou les tours seules etaient des iles
Et cette mer avec les clartes de ses profondeurs
Coulait sang de mes veines et fait battre mon coeur
Puis sur cette terre il venait mille peuplades blanches
Dont chaque homme tenait une rose a la main
Et le langage qu'ils inventaient en chemin
Je l'appris de leur bouche et je le parle encore
Le cortege passait et j'y cherchais mon corps
Tous ceux qui survenaient et n'etaient pas moi-meme
Amenaient un a un les morceaux de moi-meme
On me batit peu a peu comme on eleve une tour
Les peuples s'entassaient et je parus moi-meme
Qu'ont forme tous les corps et les choses humaines
Temps passes Trepasses Les dieux qui me formates
Je ne vis que passant ainsi que vous passates
Et detournant mes yeux de ce vide avenir
En moi-meme je vois tout le passe grandir
Rien n'est mort que ce qui n'existe pas encore
Pres du passe luisant demain est incolore
Il est informe aussi pres de ce qui parfait
Presente tout ensemble et l'effort et l'effet
MARIZIBILL
Dans la Haute-Rue a Cologne
Elle allait et venait le soir
Offerte a tous en tout mignonne
Puis buvait lasse des trottoirs
Tres tard dans les brasseries borgnes
Elle se mettait sur la paille
Pour un maquereau roux et rose
C'etait un juif il sentait l'ail
Et l'avait venant de Formose
Tiree d'un bordel de Changai
Je connais des gens de toutes sortes
Ils n'egalent pas leurs destins
Indecis comme feuilles mortes
Leurs yeux sont des feux mal eteints
Leurs coeurs bougent comme leurs portes
LE VOYAGEUR
A Fernand Fleuret
Ouvrez-moi cette porte ou je frappe en pleurant
La vie est variable aussi bien que l'Euripe
Tu regardais un banc de nuages descendre
Avec le paquebot orphelin vers les fievres futures
Et de tous ces regrets de tous ces repentirs
Te souviens-tu
Vagues poissons arques fleurs submarines
Une nuit c'etait la mer
Et les fleuves s'y repandaient
Je m'en souviens je m'en souviens encore
Un soir je descendis dans une auberge triste
Aupres de Luxembourg
Dans le fond de la salle il s'envolait un Christ
Quelqu'un avait un furet
Un autre un herisson
L'on jouait aux cartes
Et toi tu m'avais oublie
Te souviens-tu du long orphelinat des gares
Nous traversames des villes qui tout le jour tournaient
Et vomissaient la nuit le soleil des journees
O matelots o femmes sombres et vous mes compagnons
Souvenez-vous-en
Deux matelots qui ne s'etaient jamais quittes
Deux matelots qui ne s'etaient jamais parle
Le plus jeune en mourant tomba sur le cote
O vous chers compagnons
Sonneries electriques des gares chant des moissonneuses
Traineau d'un boucher regiment des rues sans nombre
Cavalerie des ponts nuits livides de l'alcool
Les villes que j'ai vues vivaient comme des folles
Te souviens-tu des banlieues et du troupeau plaintif des paysages
Les cypres projetaient sous la lune leurs ombres
J'ecoutais cette nuit au declin de l'ete
Un oiseau langoureux et toujours irrite
Et le bruit eternel d'un fleuve large et sombre
Mais tandis que mourants roulaient vers l'estuaire
Tous les regards tous les regards de tous les yeux
Les bords etaient deserts herbus silencieux
Et la montagne a l'autre rive etait tres claire
Alors sans bruit sans qu'on put voir rien de vivant
Contre le mont passerent des ombres vivaces
De profil ou soudain tournant leurs vagues faces
Et tenant l'ombre de leurs lances en avant
Les ombres contre le mont perpendiculaire
Grandissaient ou parfois s'abaissaient brusquement
Et ces ombres barbues pleuraient humainement
En glissant pas a pas sur la montagne claire
Qui donc reconnais-tu sur ces vieilles photographies
Te souviens-tu du jour ou une vieille abeille tomba dans le feu
C'etait tu t'en souviens a la fin de l'ete
Deux matelots qui ne s'etaient jamais quittes
L'aine portait au cou une chaine de fer
Le plus jeune mettait ses cheveux blonds en tresse
Ouvrez-moi cette porte ou je frappe en pleurant
La vie est variable aussi bien que l'Euripe
MARIE
Vous y dansiez petite fille
Y danserez-vous mere-grand
C'est la maclotte qui sautille
Toutes les cloches sonneront
Quand donc reviendrez-vous Marie
Les masques sont silencieux
Et la musique est si lointaine
Qu'elle semble venir des cieux
Oui je veux vous aimer mais vous aimer a peine
Et mon mal est delicieux
Les brebis s'en vont dans la neige
Flocons de laine et ceux d'argent
Des soldats passent et que n'ai-je
Un coeur a moi ce coeur changeant
Changeant et puis encor que sais-je
Sais-je ou s'en iront tes cheveux
Crepus comme mer qui moutonne
Sais-je ou s'en iront tes cheveux
Et tes mains feuilles de l'automne
Que jonchent aussi nos aveux
Je passais au bord de la Seine
Un livre ancien sous le bras
Le fleuve est pareil a ma peine
Il s'ecoule et ne tarit pas
Quand donc finira la semaine
LA BLANCHE NEIGE
Les anges les anges dans le ciel
L'un est vetu en officier
L'un est vetu en cuisinier
Et les autres chantent
Bel officier couleur du ciel
Le doux printemps longtemps apres Noel
Te medaillera d'un beau soleil
D'un beau soleil
Le cuisinier plume les oies
Ah!
| Guess: |
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| Question: |
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| Answer: |
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| Source: |
French - Apollinaire - Alcools |
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