| I took a creative writing class in high
school. As a final project, I made a huge notebook containing
a bunch of written stuff that I wrote or that was important to me. I called it Colors of I, meaning,
more or less, "shades of myself."
I was going to post at least some of the stuff I wrote,
but after thinking about it, I decided not to. Funny thing about the
Internet: once you unleash something, it's impossible to get it
back. Both in the sense that people grab content and run away with
it like it's theirs, and also in the sense that somewhere, someone
has archived or cached everything. Ever heard of The Wayback
Machine?
So, what I will give you is stuff that was important to me
when I was doing my creative writing -- the bits of drama, poetry
and literature that I was made to memorize and/or chose to enjoy.
1129
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
511
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
I’d brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As housewives do, a Fly.
If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in balls—
And put them each in separate Drawers,
For fear the numbers fuse—
If only Centuries, delayed,
I’d count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, till my fingers dropped
Into Van Dieman’s Land.
If certain, when this life was out—
That yours and mine should be
I’d toss it yonder, like a Rind,
And take Eternity—
But, now, uncertain of the length
Of this, that is between,
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee—
That will not state—its sting.
George Gray
Edgar Lee Masters
I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me—
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life,
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid,
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny,
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire—
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
Life’s Tragedy
Paul Lawrence Dunbar
It may be misery not to sing at all
And to go silent through the brimming day.
It may be sorrow never to be loved,
But deeper griefs than these beset the way.
To have come near to sing the perfect song
And only by a half-tone lost the key,
There is the potent sorrow, there the grief,
The pale, sad staring of life’s tragedy.
To have just missed the perfect love,
Not the hot passion of untempered youth,
But that which lays aside its vanity
And gives thee, for thy trusting worship, truth—
This, this it is to be accursed indeed;
For if we mortals love, or if we sing,
We count our joys not by what we have,
But by what kept us from the perfect thing.
Smile
an unknown author
The thing that goes the farthest
towards making life worthwhile,
That costs the least and does the most,
is just a pleasant smile.
The smile that bubbles from a heart
that loves its fellow men,
Will drive away the clouds of doom
and coax the sun again.
It’s full of worth and goodness too,
with genial kindness blent.
It’s worth a million dollars
and it doesn’t cost a cent.
Penny
an unknown author
A reminder from one who cares
Designed to bring joy to mind
Carved in the face of a penny
So it will always be easy to find
Meant to carry in your pocket
Or purse with your coins or keys
Providing ceaseless confirmation
That you are beloved in many ways
Keep this token as a symbol
From one who thinks you dear
Reminding you of closeness
When no one else is near
This little heart isn’t magic
Nor can it make dreams come true
But it wishes for your well being
And it prays for contentment too
If you ever feel sad or lonely
Just touch its face and know
Another’s thoughts are with you
Wherever you may go
When someone sees this tiny heart
May they know that you are loved
A special way by a special friend
As sincerely as heaven above
So carry this heart and remember
The promise it is meant to impart
From one who wants to enfold you
With the love from a caring heart
Psalm of Life
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead which slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real – Life is earnest—
And the grave is not its goal:
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act – act in the glorious present!
Heart within and God o’er head!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time.
Footsteps, that, perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Isaiah 40:28-31
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the
Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints, nor is
weary. There is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to
the weak, and to those who have no might, he increases strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall
utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their
strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run
and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Hi, How Are You Today?
Jeff Moss
I’m feeling very horrible,
And low and mean and mad,
And dreadful and deplorable,
And rottten, sick, and sad,
And nasty and unbearable,
And hateful, vile, and blue
But thanks a lot for asking,
And please tell me. . .
How are you?
"Homework! Oh, Homework!"
Jack Prelutsky
(It's NOT by Shel Silverstein, for heaven's sake! Published in
Prelutsky's 1984 book The New Kid On The Block p.54-55, as
you can see for yourself using Amazon's "Search Inside" feature.)
Homework! Oh, Homework!
I hate you! You stink!
I wish I could wash you away in the sink,
if only a bomb
would explode you to bits.
Homework! Oh, homework!
You're giving me fits.
I'd rather take baths
with a man-eating shark,
or wrestle a lion
alone in the dark,
eat spinach and liver,
pet ten porcupines,
than tackle the homework,
my teacher assigns.
Homework! Oh, homework!
you're last on my list,
I simple can't see
why you even exist,
if you just disappeared
it would tickle me pink.
Homework! Oh, homework!
I hate you! You stink!
Ulysses
Alfred Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle-
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me-
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads- you and I are old;
Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
from Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare
Act 1 Scene 2 Cassius
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Act 3 Scene 2 Antony
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
Act 4 Scene 3 Brutus
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
from Macbeth
William Shakespeare
Act 1 Scene 4 Macbeth
that is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires:
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
Act 2 Scene 1 Macbeth
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Act 5 Scene 5 Macbeth
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
from Paradise Lost
John Milton
In either hand the hastning Angel caught
Our lingring Parents, and to th' Eastern Gate
Let them direct, and down the Cliff as fast
To the subjected Plaine; then disappeer'd.
They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:
Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through EDEN took thir solitarie way.
Oh, all right, I'll post one thing I wrote myself. It was an AIM
away message I concocted in college. You can use it yourself if
you link back to my website.
Curse You
Lucy Day W. Hobor
I'm busy right now, so please go away, don't send me a message,
or you'll surely pay.
If you disturb me, don't get me wrong, I won't be angry, at least
not for long.
Anathema, cursed, and exiled you'll be, shunned scorned and mocked,
no matter your plea,
I'll hurl curses and shouts, screams and loud cries as your GPA
tumbles and your resume dies.
This curse now I hurl, may it stick to you well, as you fall out of
heaven and down into hell:
May your teachers be boring and your classes be long, your homework
be late and your answers all wrong,
May your taxes increase and your friends all desert you, your family
die and your shoes start to hurt you.
May you never forget that you scorned my decree, that no one is [or,
you are not] worthy to speak unto me.
That's all she wrote, folks. As far as the Internet is concerned,
anyhow. |
