Boundbrook
Julia Randall
I met a man and he was fair. All the birds said Follow.
Every leaf in the wood
Shook gold onto my head
And my heart felt all its blood.
Then it was a great park land
By a willow-trailing brook bound round.
Stag and peacock walked
For pleasure in the corn,
And Merlin wound the horn.
Merlin or his tribe it was
Spun that park and lordly palace
Pearled as Helen's pin.
My master said, Walk in,
And, Touch me. It is yours.
I had a hand could change a world.
The waters dropped, the meadow furled,
That field was Circe's pen.
The shaggy beasts growled at the shucks,
Great swine, and goast, and picking cocks,
And they were all my kin.
Seven years I sojourned there,
The blacksnake nested in the briar.
Every bird was black.
Insects stained the air like smoke.
I struck and ravined in the thick
Until my heart's blood broke.
And I lay down, a beast, to die
And rose up seven years ago
In the popular fields of home.
There the streams go out and in,
All the men are common men,
The blackbird whistles in the corn.
Touch me. It is mine.
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As Kingfishers Catch Fire
Gerard Manley Hopkins
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
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The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
When the little prince arrived on the Earth, he was very much surprised not to see any people. He was beginning to be afraid he had come to the wrong planet, when a coil of gold, the color of the moonlight, flashed across the sand.
"Good evening," said the little prince courteously.
"Good evening," said the snake.
"What planet is this on which I have come down?" asked the little prince.
"This is the Earth; this is Africa," the snake answered.
"Ah! Then there are no people on the Earth?"
"This is the desert. There are no people in the desert. The Earth is large," said the snake.
The little prince sat down on a stone, and raised his eyes toward the sky.
"I wonder," he said, "whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again... Look at my planet. It is right there above us. But how far away it is!"
"It is beautiful," the snake said. "What has brought you here?"
"I have been having some trouble with a flower," said the little prince.
"Ah!" said the snake.
And they were both silent.
"Where are the men?" the little prince at last took up the conversation again. "It is a little lonely in the desert..."
"It is also lonely among men," the snake said.
The little prince gazed at him for a long time.
"You are a funny animal," he said at last. "You are no thicker than a finger..."
"But I am more powerful than the finger of a king," said the snake.
The little prince smiled.
"You are not very powerful. You haven't even any feet. You cannot even travel..."
"I can carry you farther than any ship could take you," said the snake.
He twined himself around the little prince's ankle, like a golden bracelet.
"Whomever I touch, I send back to the earth from whence he came," the snake spoke again. "But you are innocent and true, and you come from a star..."
The little prince made no reply.
"You move me to pity—you are so weak on this Earth made of granite," the snake said. "I can help you, some day, if you grow too homesick for your own planet. I can—"
"Oh! I understand you very well," said the little prince. "But why do you always speak in riddles?"
"I solve them all," said the snake.
And they were both silent.
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