Bus Stop Poems

Mare#

Giovanni Pascoli 1855-1912

M’affaccio alla finestra, e vedo il mare:
vanno le stelle, tremolano l’onde.
Vedo stelle passare, onde passare:
un guizzo chiama, un palpito risponde.

Ecco sospira l’acqua, alita il vento:
sul mare è apparso un bel ponte d’argento.

Ponte gettato sui laghi sereni,
per chi dunque sei fatto e dove meni?

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I look out the window, and I see the sea:
the stars drift by, the waves shimmer.
I see stars passing, waves passing:
a flicker calls, a throb replies.

Now the water sighs, the wind exhales:
on the sea a silver bridge appears.

Bridge thrown over silent lakes,
for whom are you made, and where do you lead?

The Fall of Hyperion - A Dream#

John Keats 1795-1821

Canto II

Mortal, that thou mayst understand aright,
I humanize my sayings to thine ear,
Making comparisons of earthly things;
Or thou might’st better listen to the wind,
Whose language is to thee a barren noise,
Though it blows legend-laden through the trees.
In melancholy realms big tears are shed,
More sorrow like to this, and such-like woe,
Too huge for mortal tongue, or pen of scribe.
The Titans fierce, self-hid, or prison-bound,
Groan for the old allegiance once more,
Listening in their doom for Saturn’s voice.
But one of our whole eagle-brood still keeps
His sov’reignty, and rule, and majesty;
Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire
Still sits, still snuffs the incense teeming up
From man to the Sun’s God yet unsecure,
For as upon the earth dire prodigies
Fright and perplex, so also shudders he:
Nor at dog’s howl, or gloom-bird’s even screech,
Or the familiar visitings of one
Upon the first toll of his passing bell
But horrors, portion’d to a giant nerve,
Make great Hyperion ache. His palace bright,
Bastion’d with pyramids of glowing gold,
And touch’d with shade of bronzed obelisks,
Glares a blood red through all the thousand courts,
Arches, and domes, and fiery galeries;
And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
Flush angerly when he would taste the wreaths
Of incense breath’d aloft from sacred hills,
Instead of sweets, his ample palate takes
Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick.
Wherefore when harbour’d in the sleepy west,
After the full completion of fair day,
For rest divine upon exalted couch
And slumber in the arms of melody,
He paces through the pleasant hours of ease,
With strides colossal, on from hall to hall;
While, far within each aisle and deep recess,
His winged minions in close clusters stand
Amaz’d, and full of fear; like anxious men
Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops,
When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.
Even now, while Saturn, rous’d from icy trance
Goes, step for step, with Thea from yon woods,
Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,
Is sloping to the threshold of the west.
Thither we tend.” — Now in clear light I stood,
Reliev’d from the dusk vale. Mnemosyne
Was sitting on a square edg’d polish’d stone,
That in its lucid depth reflected pure
Her priestess-garments. My quick eyes ran on
From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,
Through bowers of fragrant and enwreathed light.
And diamond paved lustrous long arcades.
Anon rush’d by the bright Hyperion;
His flaming robes stream’d out beyond his heels,
And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire,
That scar’d away the meek ethereal hours
And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared.