How Heavy The Days by Hermann Hesse

How heavy the days are.
There's not a fire that can warm me,
Not a sun to laugh with me,
Everything bare,
Everything cold and merciless,
And even the beloved, clear
Stars look desolately down,
Since I learned in my heart that
Love can die.

I'm Nobody! Who are you? by Emily Dickinson

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you -- Nobody -- Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary -- to be -- Somebody!
How public -- like a Frog --
To tell one's name -- the livelong June --
To an admiring Bog!

There is a Gentle Thought by Dante Alighieri

There is a gentle thought that often springs
to life in me, because it speaks of you.
Its reasoning about love’s so sweet and true,
the heart is conquered, and accepts these things.
‘Who is this’ the mind enquires of the heart,
‘who comes here to seduce our intellect?
Is his power so great we must reject
every other intellectual art?
The heart replies ‘O, meditative mind
this is love’s messenger and newly sent
to bring me all Love’s words and desires.
His life, and all the strength that he can find,
from her sweet eyes are mercifully lent,
who feels compassion for our inner fires.’

A Golden Day by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I Found you and I lost you,
All on a gleaming day.
The day was filled with sunshine,
And the land was full of May.

A golden bird was singing
Its melody divine,
I found you and I loved you,
And all the world was mine.

I found you and I lost you,
All on a golden day,
But when I dream of you, dear,
It is always brimming May.

Love And Desire by Friedrich von Schiller

Rightly said, Schlosser! Man loves what he has; what he has not, desireth;
None but the wealthy minds love; poor minds desire alone.

Columbus by Friedrich von Schiller

Steer on, bold sailor--Wit may mock thy soul that sees the land,
And hopeless at the helm may droop the weak and weary hand,
Yet ever--ever to the West, for there the coast must lie,
And dim it dawns, and glimmering dawns before thy reason's eye;
Yea, trust the guiding God--and go along the floating grave,
Though hid till now--yet now behold the New World o'er the wave!
With genius Nature ever stands in solemn union still,
And ever what the one foretells the other shall fulfil.

Heartbeat by Rainer Maria Rilke

Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart
which safely exists in the center of all things?
His giant heartbeat is diverted in us
into little pulses. And his giant grief
is, like his giant jubilation, far too
great for us. And so we tear ourselves away
from him time after time, remaining only
mouths. But unexepectedly and secretly
the giant heartbeat enters our being,
so that we scream ----,
and are transformed in being and in countenance.

Loneliness by Rainer Maria Rilke

Being apart and lonely is like rain.
It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains;
from flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs
to heaven, which is its old abode.
And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city.

It rains down on us in those twittering
hours when the streets turn their faces to the dawn,
and when two bodies who have found nothing,
dissapointed and depressed, roll over;
and when two people who despise eachother
have to sleep together in one bed-

that is when loneliness receives the rivers...

A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Without You by Hermann Hesse

My Pillow gazes upon me at night
Empty as a gravestone;
I never thought it would be so bitter
To be alone,
Not to lie down asleep in your hair.

I lie alone in a silent house,
The hanging lamp darkened,
And gently stretch out my hands
To gather in yours,
And softly press my warm mouth
Toward you, and kiss myself, exhausted and weak-
Then suddenly I'm awake
And all around me the cold night grows still.
The star in the window shines clearly-
Where is your blond hair,
Where your sweet mouth?

Now I drink pain in every delight
And poison in every wine;
I never knew it would be so bitter
To be alone,
Alone, without you.

Photolinen: La Push Beach

ignore the tides and waves
dropping you against a sheer cliff
here the sea makes the rules

you have to climb the headlands
stumble cross numerous hidden streams
enter a cocoon of fog or follow animal

tracks through moss and sand
find solitude in a whale's jaw bone
or a kind of bird you've never before seen

above sea stacks geese ribbon
toward the horizon of a curdled sky
eagles hit updrafts and glide

on twenty foot waves of air like surfers
gulls fake the maneuvers
where sky hunkers behind thick clouds

streaked like children's fingerprints
whales hump in perfect arcs
sound and spume five perfect spouts

we two imperfect once called each other lovers
now we barely move in the sludge of aftermath
while you clamber along rocks

surefooted and bound for adventure
I sit, feet planted firmly on sand
streaking my legs clean up to scars

marking every ocean I've encountered
from Indian to the Aegean and my ankles
pulse with the various tides

Colleen J. McElroy

"You're so lovely as a flower,
So pure and fair to see;
I look at you, and sadness
Comes stealing over me.

THERESE HEINE

"I do not know what haunts me,
What saddened my mind all day;
An age-old tale confounds me,
A spell I cannot allay."

HEINRICH HEINE

E'EN as a lovely flower,

So fair, so pure thou art;

I gaze on thee, and sadness

Comes stealing o'er my heart.

My hands I fain had folded

Upon thy soft brown hair,

Praying that God may keep thee

So lovely, pure and fair.

THIS mad carnival of loving,

This wild orgy of the flesh,

Ends at last and we two, sobered,

Look at one another, yawning.

Emptied the inflaming cup

That was filled with sensuous potions,

Foaming, almost running over--

Emptied is the flaming cup.

All the violins are silent

That impelled our feet to dancing,

To the giddy dance of passion--

Silent are the violins.

All the lanterns now are darkened

That once poured their streaming brilliance

On the masquerades and murmurs--

Darkened now are all the lanterns.

HEINRICH HEINE

LOVE this white and slender body,

These limbs that answer Love's caresses,

Passionate eyes, and forehead covered

With heavy waves of thick, black tresses.

You are the very one I've searched for

In many lands, in every weather.

You are my sort; you understand me;

As equals we can talk together.

In me you've found the man you care for.

And, for a while, you'll richly pay me

With kindness, kisses and endearments--

And then, as usual, you'll betray me.

HEINRICH HEINE