Turning The Other Cheek: Sir John Vanbrugh

Belinda:

Ay, but you know we must return good for evil.

Lady Brute:

That may be a mistake in the translation.

Sir John Vanbrugh

The Provok’d Wife (1697) Act I, scene i

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Justice, Injustice and Democracy: Reinhold Niebuhr

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

Reinhold Niebuhr 1892-1971

The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944)

Viens Au Creux De Mon Epaule: Charles Aznavour

Si je t’ai blessée
Si j’ai noirci ton passé
Viens pleurer au creux de mon épaule
Viens tout contre moi
Et si je fus maladroit
Je t’en prie, chérie, pardonne-moi

Laisse ta pudeur
Du plus profond de ton cœur
Viens pleurer au creux de mon épaule
Oublie si tu peux
Nos querelles d’amoureux
Et, chérie, nous pourrons être heureux

Ô, mon amour
Ne m’enlève pas le souffle de ma vie
Ni mes joies
Pour ce qui ne fut qu’un instant de folie

[Répétition] :
Ne dis pas adieu
Nous serions trop malheureux
Viens pleurer au creux de mon épaule
Car si tu partais
Si mon bonheur se brisait
Mon amour, c’est moi qui pleurerais

Ô, ô mon amour
Ne m’enlève pas le souffle de ma vie
Ni mes joies

The World Is Divided Into Two Classes: Dwight Morrow

The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition.

Dwight Morrow 1873-1931

Letter to his son, quoted in Harold Nicholson‘s biography, Dwight Morrow (1935)

Courage: C S Lewis

Courage is not merely one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.

C S Lewis

quoted in The Unquiet Grave by Cyril Connolly

Penelope and Odysseus as One Person: Ionna-Veronika Warwick

Odysseus and Penelope (1802) by Tischbein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_Wilhelm_Tischbein

One wants the world. The wing of dawn
beats in him: More! More!
The other never stirs from the loom.
An ancient rhythm repeats:
“Less—less—
the real traveling is inward.”

One loves storms and clouds,
says death is a skyless country.
The other prefers trees,
says death is a cloud of leaves
where at last we understand
the sayings of the wind.

One asks why rest—
the horrible gallop of minutes
will trample us if we stay.
The other stops to caress
a single plume of grass;
leans to petals glistening with rain.

One craves extravagant words,
says to a love, “Enchant me.”
The other thread by thread
makes beauty more naked;
weighs a shiver of sunlight,
the stream closing around the hand.

One lets the first smudge of light
erase all dreams,
now as useless as daytime stars.
The other gathers dreams
like lost feathers,
the sky a nest of horizons.

A membrane of memory
grows between them,
a tapestry of tides and tales.
The wave and the shore,
they breathe one breath,
a sea, a story of return—

the moon in a fisherman’s net.

Ionna-Veronika Warwick

Penelope and Odysseus as One Person

The Call: Charlotte Mew

From our low seat beside the fire
Where we have dozed and dreamed and watched the glow
Or raked the ashes, stopping so
We scarcely saw the sun or rain
Above, or looked much higher
Than this same quiet red or burned-out fire.
Tonight we heard a call,
A rattle on the window pane,
A voice on the sharp air,
And felt a breath stirring our hair,
A flame within us: Something swift and tall
Swept in and out and that was all.
Was it a bright or a dark angel? Who can know?
It left no mark upon the snow,
But suddenly it snapped the chain
Unbarred, flung wide the door
Which will not shut again;
And so we cannot sit here any more.
We must arise and go:
The world is cold without
And dark and hedged about
With mystery and enmity and doubt,
But we must go
Though yet we do not know
Who called, or what marks we shall leave upon the snow.

Charlotte Mew 1869-1928

The Call

All Over The World: Francoise Hardy

All over the world
People must meet and part
There’s someone like me
Feeling a pain in their heart

Some may meet again
Under that same bright star
If maybe some night
You come back from afar
Who cares if tonight
I don’t know where you are

Are you thinking of me now
Missing having me around
If you have forgotten me
My world will come tumbling down

All over the world
Others are sad tonight
There’s someone like me
Watching the sun’s fading light

All over the sky
There is the same warm glow
Here under that star
I’m wanting you to know
Wherever you are
That I still love you so.

Françoise Hardy

Dans le monde entier

Dans le monde entier, cette nuit est pareille
A tant d’autres nuits quand disparaît le soleil
Où tant de bonheur côtoie tant de détresse
Tant de choses meurent
Pendant que d’autres naissent
Tant de choses meurent
Pendant que d’autres naissent

Mais ce soir tu n’es pas là
Ce soir tu ne viendras pas
Et tu es si loin de moi
J’ai peur que tu m’oublies déjà

Que m’importe alors
De savoir plus ou moins
Si d’autres cette nuit s’aiment ou bien ont du chagrin
Si d’autres se déchirent ou se rejoignent enfin
Rien n’a d’importance sinon que tu es loin
Et que cette nuit
De toi, je ne sais rien

Seventh Day: Kathleen Raine

Kathleen Raine

Seventh Day

The Highway: W S Merwin

It seems too enormous just for a man to be
Walking on. As if it and the empty day
Were all there is. And a little dog
Trotting in time with the heat waves, off
Near the horizon, seeming never to get
Any farther. The sun and everything
Are stuck in the same places, and the ditch
Is the same all the time, full of every kind
Of bone, while the empty air keeps humming
That sound it has memorized of things going
Past. And the signs with huge heads and starved
Bodies, doing dances in the heat,
And the others big as houses, all promise
But with nothing inside and only one wall,
Tell of other places where you can eat,
Drink, get a bath, lie on a bed
Listening to music, and be safe. If you
Look around you see it is just the same
The other way, going back; and farther
Now to where you came from, probably,
Than to places you can reach by going on.

W S Merwin

The Highway