On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer — John Keats
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
—artwork by Josephine Wang © 2014

If music be the food of love...

If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again. It had a dying fall;
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving door. Enough, no more.
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,
Receiveth as the sea. Nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er.
But falls into abatement and low price
Even in a minute. So full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
—Twelfth Night, act 1, scene 1, Shakespeare
artwork by Josephine Wang © 2014

The Peace of Wild Things

The Peace of Wild Things — Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
—artwork by Josephine Wang © 2014

The quality of mercy is not strain'd

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
—Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, act 4, scene 1
artwork by Josephine Wang © 2014

Poetry — Pablo Neruda

Poetry   — Pablo Neruda
And it was at that age...
Poetry arrived in search of me.
I don't know, I don't know where it came from,
from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices,
they were not words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say,
my mouth had no way with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance,
pure nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesmal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
I felt myself a pure part of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.
—artwork by Josephine Wang © 2014