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If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam; A body of England’s, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. Poetry Out Loud Note : This poem has had two titles: “The Soldier” and “Nineteen-Fourteen: The Soldier”. The student may give either title during the recitation.

Saturday afternoon. The barracks is almost empty. The soldiers are almost all on overnight pass. There is only me, writing this letter to you, And one other soldier, down at the end of the room, And a spider, that hangs by the thread of his guts, His tenacious and delicate guts, Swift’s spider, All self-regard, or else all privacy. The dust drifts in the sunlight around him, as currents Lie in lazy, drifting schools in the vast sea. In his little sea the spider lowers himself Out of his depth. He is his own diving bell, Though he cannot see well. He observes no fish, And sees no wonderful things. His unseeing guts Are his only hold on the world outside himself. I love you, and miss you, and I find you hard to imagine. Down at the end of the room, the other soldier Is getting ready, I guess, to go out on pass. He is shining his boots. He sits on the edge of his bunk, Private, submissive, and heedful of himself, And, bending over himself, he is his own nest. The slightest sound he makes is of his being. He is his mother, and nest, wife, brother, and father. His boots are bright already, yet still he rubs And rubs till, brighter still, they are his mirror, And in this mirror he observes, I guess, His own submissiveness. He is far from home.

I love you, great new Titan! Am I not you? Napoleon and Caesar Out of you grew. Out of unthinkable torture, Eyes kissed by death, Won back to the world again, Lost and won in a breath, Cruel men are made immortal. Out of your pain born, They have stolen the sun's power With their feet on your shoulders worn. Let them shrink from your girth, That has outgrown the pallid days When you slept like Circe's swine Or a word in the brain's ways.

To say screw them, to be screw-them bent on one thing all but lost, one music or mystery, beyond all the necessary incidental snaggings of the heart; to train the whole soul’s beam on a solitary hill, or on it a special kind of rock or creeper; to be sated just by saxophone; to want nothing but your eyes lifelong to study Scottish otters: the snub, slippery-whiskered snout; the way they intertwine in threes at play, indistinguishably bound, long sleek backs submerging away... To make of this your being’s aim, its joy, and know by pulse and viscus the word joy. No gifts but thine to thyself: thou canst, if thou list, single out, make good, one wish. This from the dumb lips of an old god who with one endless, misty hand holds out to us too much to love, and with the other—crooked-fingered, crazed with veins—some nights and days.

people talk about loneliness is only sexual companionship that's soon forgotten people talk about solitude beneath its seven layers nobody can talk about solitude and soledad well, there is no english translation

Alas, my Purse! how lean and low! My silken Purse! what art thou now! One I beheld—but stocks will fall— When both thy ends had wherewithal. When I within thy slender fence My fortune placed, and confidence; A poet’s fortune!—not immense: Yet, mixed with keys, and coins among, Chinked to the melody of song. Canst thou forget, when, high in air, I saw thee fluttering at a fair? And took thee, destined to be sold, My lawful Purse, to have and hold? Yet used so oft to disembogue, No prudence could thy fate prorogue. Like wax thy silver melted down, Touch but the brass, and lo! ’twas gone: And gold would never with thee stay, For gold had wings, and flew away. Alas, my Purse! yet still be proud, For see the Virtues round thee crowd! See, in the room of paltry wealth, Calm Temperance rise, the nurse of health; And Self-Denial, slim and spare, And Fortitude, with look severe; And Abstinence, to leanness prone, And Patience, worn to skin and bone: Prudence and Foresight on thee wait, And Poverty lies here in state! Hopeless her spirits to recruit, For every Virtue is a mute. Well then, my Purse, thy Sabbaths keep; Now thou art empty, I shall sleep. No silver sounds shall thee molest, Nor golden dreams disturb my breast. Safe shall I walk with thee along, Amidst temptations thick and strong; Catched by the eye, no more shall stop At Wildey’s toys, or Pinchbeck’s shop; Nor cheapening Payne’s ungodly books, Be drawn aside by pastry-cooks: But fearless now we both may go Where Ludgate’s mercers bow so low; Beholding all with equal eye, Nor moved at—“Madam, what d’ye buy?” Away, far hence each worldly care! Nor dun nor pick-purse shalt thou fear, Nor flatterer base annoy my ear. Snug shalt thou travel through the mob, For who a poet’s purse will rob? And softly sweet in garret high Will I thy virtues magnify; Outsoaring flatterers’ stinking breath, And gently rhyming rats to death.

Don't be misled: that sea-song you hear when the shell's at your ear? It's all in your head. That primordial tide— the slurp and salt-slosh of the brain's briny wash— is on the inside. Truth be told, the whole place, everything that the eye can take in, to the sky and beyond into space, lives inside of your skull. When you set your sad head down on Procrustes' bed, you lay down the whole universe. You recline on the pillow: the cosmos grows dim. The soft ghost in the squishy machine, which the world is, retires. Someday it will expire. Then all will go silent and dark. For the moment, however, the black- ness is just temporary. The planet you carry will shortly swing back from the far nether regions. And life will continue— but only within you. Which raises a question that comes up again and again, as to why God would make ear and eye to face outward, not in?

I think I always liked the game because it sounded like my name combined with the concept of alone. (My name really does mean “alone” in Slovenian!) We don’t actually care if it’s true, but we want to know the person telling us is telling us the truth. Say his name is “Hank,” as in, “of hair.” (It’s not.) My upbringing was classically smooth/chaotic, apart from traumatic events I’ve never detailed, even to myself. Traumatic but methodical. But why say what happened even. In the tech block the blinds were down and I cleared my way to the final marble under the indistinct gaze of an indistinct master. My success had allowed me to become the bastard I always knew I could be. What did it mean, to clean the board like this, counting down to one? By these gradual and orderly subtractions my persona was configured. The goal was to remain single. Sometimes telling you the truth wouldn’t be telling you anything much. For a while I’ve felt torpid and detuned, as if I want to share a view with you, so we can both be absent in one place. Look, the sky is beautiful and sour. I’m not here, too. I’m staring out of this cloud like an anagram whose solution is probably itself. I am only the method that this stupid game was invented to explain.

Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound. No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. Will no one tell me what she sings?— Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again? Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending;— I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.

I loved a girl when I was a girl, before I knew desire could be used against me. I so wanted to be relevant. Simple exchange— bouquets of wheat. My dirt-stained hands, tangled hair. I never could be prim, in apple-pie order. I dropped all the eggs, licking their smear off my hands; wrinkled her ribbons into my pocket, tore pages from her books, all for the sake of the lonely hour.